IBitii: 




Class 

Book ^- 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



THE 

ANGLO-GERMAN 
PROBLEM 



BY 

CHARLES SAROLEA 

D.Ph., D.Litt., F.R.S. (Edin.) 
BELGIAN CONSUL IN EDINBURGH 



AMERICAN EDITION 



WITH NEW INTRODUCTION 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Ubc iknicl^erbocl^et press 

19^5 






Copyright, 1915 

BY 

CHARLES SAROLEA 
(For edition with Introductory chapter) 



MAY --4 1915 

Ube Iftnfcfcerbocfecr iptess, IRew 13orft 

©a.A397850 



CO 



FOREWORD TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 



The book of which a new and popular edition is now 
presented to the American pubHc has very Httle in 
common with the thousand and one war publications 
which are distracting the attention of a bewildered 
and satiated reader. It was not compiled in feverish 
haste since the war began. It was written years before 
the war and represents the outcome of two decades 
of study and travel in Germany. 

The volume was first published in 1912 to dispel 
the false sense of security which was blinding European 
opinion to the imminent perils ahead, to warn Britain 
of the appalHng catastrophe towards which all nations 
were drifting, and to give an accurate estimate of the 
forces that were making for war. I attempted to 
prove that Germany and not Britain or France or 
Russia was the storm-centre of international politics. 
I attempted to prove that the differences between 
Germany and Britain were not due to substantial 
grievances, but that those grievances were purely 
imaginary, that such catch phrases as taking Ger- 
many's Place in the Sun were entirely misleading and 
that both the grievances and the catch phrases were 
merely diverting the public mind from the one real 
issue at stake, the clash and conflict between two 
irreconcilable political creeds, the Imperialism of 



iv Foreword to the American Edition 

Great Britain granting equal rights to all, based on 
free trade and aiming at a federation of self-governing 
communities, and the Imperialism of Germany based 
on despotism and antagonism and aiming at the 
military ascendency of one power over subject races. 

I further attempted to show how the German 
people were in the grip of the Prussian military 
machine, of a reactionary bureaucracy, and of a 
Prussian feudal Junkertum ; how behind that military 
machine and that feudal Junkertum there were even 
more formidable moral and spiritual forces at work, 
how the whole German nation were under the spell 
of a false political creed, how the Universities, the 
Churches, the Press were all possessed with the same 
philosophy of power, obsessed with the same ex- 
clusive nationalism, and how, being misled by its 
spiritual leaders, the whole nation was honestly and 
intensely convinced that in the near future the German 
Empire must challenge the world in order to establish 
its supremacy over the continent of Europe. 

II 

Habent sua fata lihelli! Motley's Rise of the Dutch 
Republic was refused by the illustrious house of 
Murray. The now historical Foundations of Cham- 
berlain were rejected for twenty years by Eng- 
lish publishers until the translation brought a little 
fortune to Mr. John Lane. Without in the least 
suggesting a comparison with those famous works, I 
only want to point out that the Anglo-German Problem 
has passed through as strange literary vicissitudes. 
A book written by a sympathetic and devoted student 
of German literature and who for twenty years had 
been working for the diffusion of German culture, 



Foreword to the American Edition v 

was denounced as anti-German. A book inspired 
from the first page to the last with pacific and demo- 
cratic ideals was denounced as a militarist and mis- 
chievous production. A temperate judicial analysis 
was dubbed as alarmist and sensational and bracketed 
with the scaremongerings of the Yellow Press. The 
radical Daily News of London dismissed my volume 
with a contemptuous notice. The Edinburgh reviewer 
of the Scotsman pompously declared that such a book 
could do no good. 

To-day, both the press and the public have made 
ample if belated amends for the unjust treatment 
meted out to the Anglo-German Problem on its first 
appearance. His Majesty King Albert has empha- 
sized the prophetic character of the book and has 
paid it the high compliment of recommending it to 
members of the Government. University statesmen 
like President Butler, eminent lawyers Hke Mr. James 
Beck, illustrious philosophers like Professor Bergson 
have testified to its fairness, its moderation, and its 
political insight. Almost unnoticed on its publication 
in 191 2, the Anglo-German Problem is to-day one of the 
three books on the war most widely read throughout 
the British Empire and is being translated into the 
French, Dutch, and Spanish languages. 



Ill 



Not only have the principles and general conclusions 
propounded in the A^iglo-German Problem received 
signal confirmation from recent events, but the fore- 
casts and anticipations have been verified in every 
detail. It is the common fate of war books to become 
very quickly out of date. After four years, there is not 



vi Foreword to the American Edition 

one paragraph which has been contradicted by actual 
fact. Even the chapter on the Baghdad Railway, writ- 
ten in 1906 and published as a separate pamphlet nine 
years ago, remains substantially correct. One of the 
leading financial magnates of Wall Street wrote to me : 
** Events have not only unfolded themselves in the 
way you anticipated, but they have happened for the 
identical reasons which you indicated." I pointed out 
the fatal peril of the Austrian-Serbian differences and 
of the ''Drang nach Osten'^ policy and it is the Serbian- 
Austrian differences which have precipitated the war. 
I prophesied that the invasion of Belgium and not the 
invasion of England was the contingency to be dreaded, 
and Belgium has become the main theatre of miHtary 
operations. I emphasized that the conflict was one 
of fundamental moral and political ideals rather than 
of economic interests and the war has developed into 
a religious crusade. I prophesied that the war would 
be long and cruel, and it has proved the most ruthless 
war of modern times. 

All the forces which I prophesied would make for 
war have made for war : the reactionary policy of the 
Junkerthum, the internal troubles, the personality 
of the Kaiser, the propaganda of the press and of the 
universities . Similarly , the forces which were expected 
to make for peace and which I prophesied would not 
make for peace have failed to work for peace. Few 
publicists anticipated that the millions of German 
Social Democrats would behave as timid henchmen 
of the Prussian Junker, and my friend Vandervelde, 
leader of the International Social Democracy and 
now Belgian Minister of State, indignantly repudi- 
ated my reflections on his German comrades. 
Alas! the Gospel according to St. Marx has been as 



Foreword to the American Edition vii 

ineffectual as the Gospel according to St. Marc. The 
Social Democracy which called itself the International 
(with a capital I) has proved selfishly nationalist, and 
the masses which had not the courage to fight for their 
rights under Kaiser Bebel are now slaughtering their 
French and English brethren and are meekly enlisted 
in the legions of Kaiser William. 

The Anglo-German problem, written by a Belgian 
who foresaw the catastrophe threatening his native 
country will be followed up shortly by another book 
on the Reconstruction of Belgium. Belgium has been 
not only the champion of European freedom ; she has 
also been the innocent victim of the old order. It is 
only in the fitness of things that after the war Belgium 
shall become the keystone of the new International 
Order. The whole of Europe is ultimately responsi- 
ble for the Belgian tragedy. The whole of Europe 
must therefore be interested in and pledged to the 
restoration of Belgium and to the liberation of the 
Belgian people now crushed and bleeding under the 
heel of the Teutonic Invader. 

Charles Sarolea. 



PREFACE 

I 

It is the object of the following pages, exhaustively 
and systematically, to study the Anglo-German 
problem in all its bearings, without reticence or 
ambiguity. I think it is high time that such a study 
should be undertaken. We are told, it is true, that the 
less said about a delicate situation the better. I do 
not believe it. I believe in outspokenness, in a free 
and frank discussion, provided the discussion be 
based on a thorough knowledge of the facts. Two 
great people must not be afraid of facing realities 
such as they are. In the words of Professor Harnack : 
**A permanent peace can only be achieved by hard 
intellectual effort and intellectual honesty." The 
first condition of a mutual understanding between 
England and Germany is that the whole case be 
brought before the tribunal of public opinion, that the 
truth, the whole truth, be told, that a festering wound 
be searched. The doctor who wants to cure a danger- 
ous disease will not effect a cure by merely denying 
the danger, or by making light of the disease, or by 
trusting to the vis curativa of nature. No! Rather 
will he investigate and probe the wound. And he 
will not be afraid of inflicting pain, if inflicting pain 
means the salvation of the patient. By all means let 



X Preface 

us be sympathetic and conciliatory to our German 
cousins, let us be unstinting in our appreciation of 
their intellectual, artistic, and moral qualities, of their 
magnificent achievements. But also let us not cover 
up the defects of their character and the shortcomings 
of their policy, and let us not load their sins on our 
own shoulders. Christian humility is a great virtue, 
but even the most humble Christian would not confess 
to a sin which had been committed by somebody else ; 
for to make such a confession would be to tell a lie, 
and it is neither necessary nor desirable to tell a lie 
for the purpose of conciliating an opponent. 

England cannot honestly admit the truth and 
reality of German grievances. England cannot admit 
that in the past she has ever adopted an attitude of 
contemptuous superiority towards the German people. 
Still less can England admit that she has systemati- 
cally stood in the way of German colonial ambitions. 
She cannot admit it, for the simple reason that only a 
few years ago those German colonial ambitions did not 
exist. Almost to the end of his long rule, Bismarck 
would not have colonies, and he deliberately en- 
couraged France in that policy of African expansion 
which Germany now objects to. Germany would 
probably have had a much larger colonial empire if 
she had chosen to have it. History teaches us that 
in the development of European colonization there 
are some nations, like the Spaniards and Portuguese, 
that have come too earl}^ in the field. There are other 
nations, like England and Russia, that have come 
in the nick of time. And, finally, there are nations 
that have come too late. The German people have 
arrived too late in the race for colonial empire. They 
may regret it, but surely it would be monstrous to use 



Preface xi 

the fact as a grievance against the people of this 
country. I may bitterly regret that twenty years ago 
I had not the money or the energy or the foresight to 
invest in the development of Argentine, or that I did 
not buy an estate in Canada, which in those early days 
I might have got for a hundred pounds, and which 
to-day would be worth hundreds of thousands. But 
that is no reason why I should hate the present 
possessors of landed property in the Far West or in the 
Far South. That is no reason why I should wish to 
dispossess them of land which they have legitimately 
acquired, whether they owe it to their luck or to their 
pluck, to favourable circumstances or to their initiative 
and perseverance. 

It is a consummation devoutly to be wished that 
the two nations should approach the settlement of 
their differences in a spirit of conciliation and goodwill, 
but I do not see how the cause of peace can be pro- 
moted by encouraging a belief in the German people 
that they have a long standing score to settle. Let 
that belief once become a rooted conviction in their 
minds, and it will rankle and fester. On the contrary, 
let the German people be convinced that untoward 
circumstances or lack of foresight in their own states- 
men are entirely to blame if their colonial ambitions 
are not to-day fulfilled or if they experience political 
difficulties at home, and the rancour and hatred 
against England will disappear from their hearts. 



II 



But because I refuse to believe that there is any 
justification in German grievances, I do not therefore 
agree with those well-meaning English writers who 



xii Preface 

assert that the Anglo-German misunderstandings are 
entirely unreal, and that the present strained relations 
and the present ill-feeling between the two nations are 
purely superficial and are wholly due to artificial 
causes, that they are mainly the result of a mischievous 
Press campaign carried on by irresponsible journalists 
and of a mistaken view of commercial interests. I 
submit that such statements are absolutely contrary 
to the real facts. 

Alas! the misunderstandings between England and 
Germany are not superficial but deep seated. They 
do not merely involve questions of commercial interest, 
but they are rooted in a conflict of principles and 
ideals. If a war between the two countries did break 
out, it would not be merely an economic war, like 
the colonial wars between France and England in 
the eighteenth century ; rather would it partake of the 
nature of a political and religious crusade, like the 
French wars of the Revolution and the Empire. The 
present conflict between England and Germany is the old 
conflict between liberalism and despotism, between 
industrialism and militarism, between progress and 
reaction, between the masses and the classes. The 
conflict between England and Germany is a conflict, 
on the one hand, between a nation which believes in 
political liberty and national autonomy, where the 
Press is free and where the rulers are responsible to 
public opinion, and, on the other hand, a nation where 
public opinion is still muzzled or powerless and where 
the masses are still under the heel of an absolute 
government, a reactionary party, a military Junker- 
tum, and a despotic bureaucracy. 

The root of the evil lies in the fact that in Germany 
the war spirit and the war caste still prevail, and that a 



Preface xiii 

military Power like Prussia is the predominant part- 
ner in the German Confederation. The mischievous 
masterpiece of Carlyle on Frederick the Great, and 
his more mischievous letter to the Times, have misled 
English opinion as to the true character and traditions 
and aims of the Prussian monarchy. Prussia has 
been pre-eminently for two hundred years the military 
and reactionary State of Central Europe, much more 
so even than Russia. Prussia owes whatever she is, 
and whatever territory she has, to a systematic policy 
of cunning and deceit, of violence and conquest. No 
doubt she has achieved an admirable work of organi- 
zation at home, and has fulfilled what was perhaps a 
necessary historic mission, but in her international 
relations she has been mainly a predatory Power. She 
has stolen her Eastern provinces from Poland. She is 
largely responsible for the murder of a great civilized 
nation. She has wrested Silesia from Austria. She 
has taken Hanover from its legitimate rulers. She 
has taken Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark, Alsace- 
Lorraine from France. And to-day the military caste 
in Prussia trust and hope that a final conflict with 
England will consummate what previous wars have so 
successfully accomplished in the past. They are all the 
more anxious to enter the lists and to run the hazards 
of war because it becomes more and more difficult to 
govern a divided Reichstag and a dissatisfied people 
without uniting them against a foreign enemy, and 
because they realize that unless they restore their 
prestige and consolidate their power by a signal 
victory the days of their predominance are numbered. 
Liberal publicists in this country ought to be the 
very last to fail to see the real points at issue and to 
ignore the fundamental fact that in Germany political 



xiv Preface 

aggressiveness abroad is explained by political reaction 
at home. It is perfectly true that England has no 
quarrel with the German people, that there has existed 
a hereditary alliance between the two nations, that 
they have fought side by side on many a battlefield, 
and that for generations the English people have paid 
ungrudgingly their tribute of admiration to the 
glorious achievements of the German people in philo- 
sophy and science, in literature and in music. But 
then the German people do not control the political 
situation. The German popular Press and the official 
Press Bureau of Mr. Hammann often do not even give 
them a chance to have the political problems brought 
before them. It is equally true that the assumption 
that war would benefit Germany is, to use the expres- 
sion of Mr. Norman Angell in his epoch-making 
treatise, a "great illusion," and that the victor would 
certainly suffer as much as, or more than, the van- 
quished. But, then, the ruling classes and the middle 
classes are suffering under that illusion, and even the 
masses themselves — with the doubtful exception of 
the Socialists — are actuated, not by their true in- 
terests, but by their passions artificially inflamed. 

Instead of evading those fundamental facts just 
stated, let the English Liberals proclaim them from 
the housetops, so that the German and the British 
merchant, and the German and the British artisan 
may hear them. Let Liberal publicists strain every 
effort to enlighten German public opinion as well as 
English opinion. Let them proclaim that the remedy 
of the present situation lies not in the satisfaction of 
imaginary grievances, in the concession of "territorial 
compensation" at the expense of third parties, but in 
the establishment of popular government in the 



Preface xv 

German Empire, and in the political education of the 
German people. 



Ill 



It may be objected by English readers that, not 
being a born Englishman, I am scarcely qualified to 
interfere in such an anxious and grave debate. On 
the contrary, I submit that it is precisely because I 
was born a Belgian that I have perhaps a better chance 
to be listened to by the German public. The German 
public in its present mood will not listen to English 
writers, even as the British public distrusts German 
writers. Only last year Professor Delbriick refused to 
write for the Contemporary Review simply because Dr. 
Dillon was a regular contributor to that periodical, 
and because, according to the German professor, Dr. 
Dillon was poisoning the wells of public opinion in 
England. 

Nor can I admit that, because I was born in 
Belgium, I ought to consider myself as a disinterested 
outsider with regard to the Anglo-German problem. 
It is true that in theory the neutrality of Belgium is 
guaranteed by international treaties; but when I 
observe the signs of the times, the ambitions of the 
German rulers, and when I consider such indications 
as the recent extension of strategic railways on the 
Belgian-German frontiers, I do not look forward with 
any feeling of security to future contingencies in the 
event of a European war. I am not at all convinced 
that the scare of a German invasion of England is 
justified. Indeed, I am inclined to believe the Ger- 
mans when they assert that in case of war Germany 
would not be likely to invade Britain. She would be 



xvi Preface 

far more likely to invade Belgium, because Belgium 
has always been the pawn in the great game of 
European politics, and has often been, and may again 
become, the battlefield and cockpit of Europe. 

If, then, I cannot pretend that I am completely 
impartial in this controversy, I may at least say that 
I am writing as a true friend and admirer of the Ger- 
man people. Indeed, it is because I have learnt to 
admire the German people that I have also learnt to 
detest the Prussian spirit, which is the very negation 
of whatever is noblest and purest in the German ge- 
nius. A Fleming by birth and a Dutchman by origin, 
I have perhaps as good a right to call myself a pure 
Teuton as most Nationalist Prussians who have an 
abundant admixture of Slav blood in their veins. I 
spoke a German dialect in the nursery. In my youth 
I nearly ruined my eyesight by reading Gothic script 
and German classics in those hideous editions, cheap 
and nasty, which have done so much to improve 
popular culture across the Rhine. I have revelled in 
German poetry, I have drunk at the fountain of 
German philosophy and theology. I may therefore 
claim to speak with some understanding and with 
genuine sympathy. A writer in the German Kolnische 
Zeitung, commenting on a previous essay of mine on a 
German topic, regrets that I should not have studied 
the subject in a more detached and objective spirit. 
I can only refer that German journalist to the judg- 
ment and appreciation of my work which the greatest 
political writer of modern Germany, Professor Hans 
Delbriick, has expressed in a biographical notice of 
myself which appeared in the Preussische Jahrbticher. 
Nobody knows better than myself how little I deserve 
the too generous praise which Professor Delbriick has 



Preface xvii 

given to my political writings, but at least I can say 
this, that for twenty years I have studied the problems 
of international politics from personal observation, 
and in a spirit of disinterested research: ''Sine amore 
et odio quorum causas procul haheo.'" 

And although I cannot lay claim to the very doubt- 
ful virtue of absolute intellectual impartiality and 
neutrality, I can at least say this, that I have done my 
utmost not to consider the problem from any English 
Nationalist point of view. I may assert in all honesty 
that I have not written this book in any narrow or 
insular spirit. I have tried to be what all educated 
Germans professed to be in the Golden Age of German 
philosophy or German literature. I have tried to be 
what the greatest German of all times — I mean, of 
course, Goethe, and not Count Zeppelin — has always 
claimed to be — namely, a Cosmopolitan, a good 
European; and it is as a good European that I venture 
to ask for a fair hearing in both countries. 

These personal explanations were necessary, partly 
because I do not wish to compromise anybody but 
myself, and because I do not desire to be told that I 
am only expressing English prejudices ; partly because 
in such a delicate controversy the personal equation 
means a great deal. Admirers of Prussian despotism 
will no doubt make a determined effort to dispute my 
qualifications or my right to speak. I am not afraid 
of my political opponents, and I shall answer them in 
the words of Themistocles : "You may strike, if you 
will only listen." I shall not mind being attacked and 
hit hard, provided my arguments be listened to. The 
truth generally prevails, if there is no conspiracy of 
silence against it. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction ...... i 

Why does Europe Distrust Germany ? . 25 

Some Paradoxes and Contradictions of 

Modern Germany .... 40 

Prussia and Germany .... 53 

Reaction in Germany .... 69 

Militarism in Germany .... 88 

A Prussian General on the Coming War iio 

Nationalism in Germany and the Perversion 

OF Patriotism . . . . .130 

How Prussia Treats her own Subjects . 150 

The First German Grievance . . .169 

The Baghdad Railway and German Expan- 
sion IN THE Near East . . .182 

The Second German Grievance . . 209 

Is German Socialism Making for Peace ? 221 

xix 



XX 



Contents 



The German Kaiser 229 

Conclusion 263 

Sources Consulted 279 



THE ANGLO-GERMAN PROBLEM 



The Anglo-German Problem 



INTRODUCTION 

Europe is drifting slowly but steadily towards an 
awful catastrophe which, if it does happen, will throw 
back civilization for the coming generation, as the 
War of 1870 threw back civilization for the generation 
which followed and which inherited its dire legacy of 
evil. For the last ten years two great Western Powers 
and two kindred races have become increasingly 
estranged, and have been engaging in military prepa- 
rations which are taxing to the utmost the resources 
of the people, and are paralyzing social and political 
reform in both countries. A combination of many 
causes, moral and political, has bred suspicion and 
distrust, and the fallacious assumption of conflicting 
interests has turned suspicion into hatred. Only a 
year ago England and Germany stood on the brink 
of war. If after the coup of Agadir, Germany had 
persisted in her policy, the conflagration would have 
ensued, the storm would have burst out. The war 
cloud has temporarily lifted, but it has not passed 
away. The danger is as acute as it was, because the 
causes which produced the recent outburst are still 



2 The Anglo-German Problem 

with us, and the malignant passions are gathering 
strength with each passing day. 

This formidable evil is threatening England, but it 
does not originate in England, and England cannot 
be held responsible for it. The period of aggressive 
Imperialism has passed away. Mr. Joseph Chamber- 
lain and Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in so far as they once 
represented the old bellicose Imperialismx, to-day are 
exploded forces. The English people were never more 
peacefully inclined, and Liberals and Tories are united 
in their desire for a pacific solution of the present 
difficulties. In this respect an extraordinary change 
has come over England in the last ten years. In the 
wonderful age in which we are living, where the law of 
acceleration reveals itself in politics and economics as 
well as in science, more decisive events have taken 
place during the last decade than during the entire 
previous half century, and the English people have 
matured and advanced in political wisdom to an 
extent which few citizens realize. A cynic might 
object that if England to-day is less aggressive, it is 
because she is satiated and "saturated," because all 
the desirable places on the map of the world have 
already been painted red, and because the conquering 
Briton has taken up so much of the white man's 
burden that he is in need of a rest. And he might 
further object that England to-day is so entirely 
absorbed in home affairs, and confronted with so 
many and such anxious internal problems, that she 
has neither time nor energy to spare for further Im- 
perial expansion. The objection might seem plausible 
enough if history did not teach us that internal 
difficulties, so far from being an obstacle to external 
aggression, are often one of its main motives. Only 



Introduction 3 

too frequently have statesmen found a spirited foreign 
policy the line of least resistance in the solution of their 
domestic difficulties. 

I therefore believe that the enthusiasm for social 
reform which to-day animates British statesmen, to 
whatever party they belong, is the best proof of a 
sincere desire on the part of the British nation to 
preserve the peace of the world. 

But there are other causes which have contributed 
even more efficiently to produce the pacific temper of 
the English people. Both the Transvaal War and the 
Russo-Japanese War, with the frightful sacrifices they 
entailed, have had a sobering effect on the national 
mind, and have laid bare the dangers of aggressive 
Imperialism. On the other hand, the remarkable 
results achieved by the diplomacy of King Edward the 
Seventh have brought home the conviction that in the 
promotion of national interests more may be achieved 
by tact and sympathy than by brute force. But, 
above all, the concession of complete autonomy to the 
Dutch-speaking South African peoples, the Constitu- 
tion of the South African Commonwealth, the loyalty 
of the Dominion of Canada, and its rejection of the 
reciprocity treaty with the United States have had an 
inspiring effect on the mother country, and have 
strengthened her belief in the wisdom of a liberal and 
generous policy. England to-day has returned to her 
ancient traditions. The British people have outgrown 
the bonds of a narrow nationalism. In the political 
philosophy of the day, national patriotism has ceased 
to be an absolute category, an end in itself. National- 
ism has become a relative category and a means to a 
higher end. The British Empire has become a world- 
wide federation of free, self-governing communities, 



4 The Anglo-German Problem 

including many different religions, but bound together 
by the same political ideal. The British Empire may 
be legitimately regarded as the most decisive experi- 
ment in liberal statesmanship in the world's history, 
the most effective power for good in world politics, the 
most convincing proof that an unswerving respect for 
the political rights of the people is the strongest bond 
of unity, and loyalty, that order is compatible with 
liberty, and that the conflicting claims of nationality 
can be and must be reconciled with the claims of 
humanity. In past ages the idea of empire has always 
been associated with the idea of despotism. It is the 
unique glory of the British Empire that it is indis- 
solubly associated with and synonymous with political 
liberty. As England has been the alma mater of repre- 
sentative government, so will the British Empire be 
the perfect type and exemplar of all free common- 
wealths, of all future federations of civilized com- 
munities, the nearest approach to that federation of 
humanity which has been the philosopher's stone of 
human statesmanship. 

For the reasons which I have just stated, the pacific 
intentions of the English people to-day cannot be 
disputed, and for those self-same reasons we cannot 
accept the theory that England is quite as responsible 
as Germany for the present situation. We cannot 
admit that Germany is justified in saying, "We are 
preparing for war because we dread an attack from 
England," just as much as the English people think 
themselves justified in saying, "We are preparing for 
war because we dread an attack from Germany." If 
our interpretation of the significance of the British 
Empire is not a hollow phrase, the English people 
have actually broken through that vicious circle, and 



Introduction 5 

the conclusion must force itself upon any impartial 
observer that in the present crisis the danger does not 
come from England, but that it undoubtedly does 
originate in Germany. 

It is Germany and not England which is the storm- 
centre, the volcanic zone, in international politics. 
From there have come, ever since i860, the tension 
and friction, the suspicion and distrust. It is there 
that the pagan gods of the Nibelungen are forging their 
deadly weapons. I admit that it is impossible from 
the very outset of our inquiry to establish a conviction 
which necessarily can only be reached at the conclusion 
of our argument, but I hope and trust that in the 
present volume we shall provide sufficient cumulative 
evidence to convince even the most sceptical. In this 
opening chapter v/e shall only dispose of a few pre- 
liminary objections, and answer a few previous ques- 
tions proposed by those candid critics who at the 
beginning of our investigation would be inclined to 
dispute the reality of the danger against which we are 
seeking to protect ourselves, or by those critics who 
would deny the very existence of the problem of which 
we are seeking a solution. 

Many English and German publicists try to re- 
assure us by telling us that the present Anglo-German 
peril is only a passing phenomenon, and that with 
sufficient goodwill and patience we shall soon see the 
end of it. ^' Deus dabit his quoque finem.^* They tell 
us that the present situation is mainly created by 
mutual misunderstandings, and that those misunder- 
standings are only too easily explained, in the first 
place, by the almost universal ignorance of the two 
nations concerning each other's difficulties and charac- 
teristics, and, in the second place, by the peculiar 



6 The Anglo-German Problem 

psychology of the crowd, and by the mischievous 
workings of a Yellow Press bent on increasing its 
circulation by spreading sensational reports and 
inflaming popular passion. 

I am quite prepared to make full allowance for 
national ignorance and national prejudice. To 
restrict my criticism to the English public, I fully 
admit that the ignorance of the English people con- 
cerning their German cousins is prodigious. When we 
find that the study of the German language — that is 
to say, of a language which is the key to a glorious 
literature as well as the chief means of establishing 
business relations with one of the great commercial 
Powers of the world — is almost "taboo" in every 
English public school and university, owing to the 
inconceivable pedantry and narrow-mindedness of 
educational authorities^; when we find that in the 
whole of the Scottish universities there does not exist 
one chair of German language and literature, and that 
in the University of Cambridge it has been left to the 
munificence of a Teutonic merchant to make adequate 
provision for the teaching of German; when we find 
that a knowledge of Greek, only attainable by a small 
minority, and a smattering of Greek forced upon the 

' Lord Haldane is a great expert in German literature and 
German philosophy. He is Chancellor of one British university, 
and has been Lord Rector of another, and he is keenly interested 
in educational reform. But I am not aware that either he or any 
other statesman has ever attempted to do anything to counteract 
the imbecile policy of the educational authorities and to encourage 
the study of German. In contrasting the intellectual relations of 
England and Germany we are reminded of the relative position of 
the French people and of the German people before the outbreak 
of the War of 1870. The Germans knew everything about the 
French, the French knew little or nothing of the Germans. 



Introduction 7 

vast majority of English schoolboys are considered 
more important than a practical mastery of the Ger- 
man language, which ought to be placed within the 
reach of every pupil ; when we find that ninety-five per 
cent, of the members of the House of Commons, whose 
first duty it should be to know at first hand the condi- 
tions which prevail in Germany, to keep in touch with 
the German Press, and v/ith German pubHc opinion, 
are incapable of reading a German newspaper; when 
we find that the most popular English paper of the 
day recently sent out a correspondent to follow the 
German elections, who naively admitted that he did 
not understand a word of German ; when we see such 
an extraordinary state of things I am only too ready 
to admit that nothing that can be said about the igno- 
rance of the British public can possibly be too strong, 
and I feel it my duty to proclaim that the educational 
authorities who allow such a scandal to continue are 
guilty of an almost criminal neglect of duty, and that 
they must be held primarily responsible for a great 
deal of the intellectual misunderstanding that exists 
between the two nations. ^ 

But however deplorable that ignorance may be, 
however much it may have contributed in the past to 
mutual differences, and however dangerous it might 
prove in case of a war, I do not think that it can 
account for the present crisis ; and I am driven to that 

^ In the face of that ignorance, which is accepted by every 
legislator, how contemptible must appear the gushing cant about 
the admirable results of interparliamentary visits and confer- 
ences! It must be no doubt infinitely less troublesome to attend 
parliamentary banquets and to indulge in fraternal potations and 
to intone the Gaudeamus igitur than to fight for a reform of our 
effete educational system. 



8 The Anglo-German Problem 

conclusion by the simple reflection that the feeling of 
hostility is so much less acute and the attitude of de- 
preciation is so much less marked in England, where 
the ignorance of German is almost universal, than in 
Germany, where the educated classes do possess a 
knowledge of the English language. 

Nor can it be said that the "psychology of the 
crowd" in both countries must be held mainly 
responsible for the existing situation. With regard to 
the German crowd I am ready to admit that ample 
allowance must be made for the animal spirits of a 
young and growing nation, especially when its rulers 
find it to their advantage to turn the popular mind 
away from the consideration of their own political 
shortcomings, in order to unite them against an im- 
aginary enemy. And I know full well that the whole 
history of the nineteenth century presents a lament- 
able record of similar periodical outbursts of national 
animosity. Thus France was the ' ' hereditary enemy ' ' 
of England before she became her ally. Thus Ger- 
many and Austria were "hereditary enemies," and 
fought a bitter war before they became loyal friends. 
Thus England was the "inveterate enemy" of Russia; 
thus it was thought that the occupation of Merv, a 
sterile oasis on the Persian frontier, must be a casus 
belli, and thus England was subject to periodical fits of 
'' Mervousness'' and '^nervousness'' before she became 
united to the Slav Empire in an Entente Cordiale. 
But the present misunderstanding between England 
and Germany is a different phenomenon. It cannot 
be traced to sudden gusts of popular passion. It 
cannot be explained by conflicting interests. It can- 
not be explained by racial differences, for they are 
kindred races. It cannot be explained by religious 



Introduction 9 

differences, for both England and Germany are 
Protestant rather than Catholic countries. It cannot 
be explained by any hereditary hostility, for in the 
past England and Germany have never fought against 
each other on a battlefield. On the contrary, they 
have often fought as allies against a common foe. 
The causes of the present animosity, therefore, lie 
deeper, and no shallow phrases about the "passing 
moods of the people," or the "psychology of the 
crowd," can be accepted as a solution of the difficulty. 

Nor do I think that the popular Press can be held 
responsible to any large extent for the Anglo-German 
peril. I admit that the Yellow Press has often made it 
a matter of business, and sometimes a remunerative 
business, to stir up ill-feeling amongst nations. But 
in the present case the newspapers have not created 
the ill-feeling; they only gave expression to a feeling 
which already existed. In this connection it must be 
noted that in Germany anti-British hostility is by no 
means restricted to the Yellow Press. Any one ac- 
quainted with the German Press will know that a 
Conservative paper like the Kreuzzeitung or a National 
Liberal journal like the Preussische Jahrbilcher is 
almost as aggressive in tone as a frankly Nationalist 
paper like the Zukunft. 

German and English publicists, whilst admitting 
the existence of a feeling of hostility, point out the 
many unmistakable signs of goodwill heralding a better 
understanding in the future. They point to the 
frequent exchange of international courtesies, to the 
periodical visits of Members of Parliament and of 
representative men of the churches ; they point to the 
visit of Viscount Haldane; and last, but not least, they 
point to the many pacific assurances of the German 



10 The Anglo-German Problem 

Kaiser. With regard to the utterances of the Kaiser, 
I can only say that if the Kaiser has made many 
pacific speeches, his aggressive speeches have been 
even more numerous. I have no doubt that the 
Kaiser is perfectly sincere, and I believe him to be 
animated with the most cordial feelings for this 
country. If I am asked to explain the contradiction, 
I can only see one explanation, and it is not one which 
I am very willing to admit. And the explanation is 
this : when he is expressing words of peace and goodwill 
he is speaking in his own private capacity and as the 
grandson of an English queen. On the contrary, 
whenever he utters words of ill-will and menace, 
whenever he waves the flag, when he shows the mailed 
fist, he is acting as the representative and speaking 
as the spokesman of a considerable fraction amongst 
his subjects. 

That there has existed in Germany a very wide- 
spread feeling of hostility against the English people 
we have uncontrovertible proof. And the evidence 
we have on no less an authority than the Kaiser 
himself. In the famous interview published by the 
Daily Telegraph, William the Second emphatically 
testified to the existence and to the persistence of the 
feeling which he had systematically attempted to coun- 
teract. The admission raised legitimate indignation 
in Germany. It was ill-advised. It was calculated 
to intensify the very animosity which it depre- 
cated. But the fact itself, the existence of the ani- 
mosity, could not be disputed. After all, the Kaiser 
ought to know the feelings, if not of the majority of his 
subjects, at least of those ruling classes with whom he 
comes in contact. 

And therefore no reassuring interviews or utter- 



Introduction ii 

ances, even of an Anglophile Kaiser, can blind us to the 
significance of recent events. The signs of the times 
are too clear to leave us in any doubt with regard 
to the state of the popular mind in Germany. In 
England and Germany the public men of all parties 
and of no party, publicists of every colour and of no 
colour, interpret those signs in exactly the same way. 
When we hear in England leading Socialists like Mr. 
Blatchford and Mr. Hyndman, eminent Positivists 
like Mr. Frederic Harrison, apostles of peace like Mr. 
Norman Angell, all warning us that we stand on the 
brink of an abyss; when we hear in Germany the 
leader of the National Liberal Party, Mr. Basserman, 
the leader of the Conservative Party, Mr. von Heyde- 
brand, the leader of the Progressive Party, the Rev. 
Friedrich Naumann, men divided on many political 
problems but united in their suspicion of England, 
when we hear those men deliver inflammatory speeches 
in the Reichstag; when the guarded and dignified 
speech of an English Cabinet Minister, who has 
always been known for his pro-German sympathies, 
has been distorted in Germany into a challenge of war, 
and has called forth such extraordinary speeches as 
those of Mr. von Heydebrand; when we see the most 
eminent German publicist. Professor Hans Delbriick 
of the University of Berlin, a Liberal and a friend of 
England, actually refusing to write a peaceful declara- 
tion for the Contemporary Review, because, in his 
opinion, such a declaration could not serve any useful 
purpose in the present excited state of public opinion ; 
when we see the most influential journalist of the 
German Empire, Maximilian Harden, who is not only 
a writer of brilliant talent and immense learning, but 
who has the keen Semitic instinct for what appeals to 



12 The Anglo-German Problem 

the public, proclaiming again and again that things 
cannot go on any longer as they are, and month after 
month calling for the arbitrament of war, and repeat- 
ing in the Zukunft his fateful burden, ' ' Ceterum censeo 
Carthaginem esse delendam*' ; when we see the German 
Crown Prince, who is no longer an impulsive and 
immature youth, but a responsible man of thirty, 
widely travelled, and with considerable political ex- 
perience, frantically applauding violent anti-British 
outbursts in the Reichstag, and being made into a 
popular hero for doing so; when finally, we see that 
the German Emperor himself is being proclaimed a 
very apostle of peace merely because he courageously 
refuses to inflame the warlike passions ; when we see the 
Kaiser, nay even the war lord of Europe, being publicly 
derided and reviled for his pacific intentions, and when 
that glorious appellation, ''William the Peaceful,'' 
has become a nickname and is turned into an insult; 
when we can observe all those concurrent symptoms, 
surely we have a right to conclude that the inter- 
national situation has indeed become one of imminent 
peril. 

Uninfluenced by those ominous signs of the times, 
English and German optimists still refuse to surrender, 
still persist in their optimism. They argue that the 
situation is no doubt serious but that those outbursts 
of popular feeling in Germany, violent as they are, 
have largely been caused by English suspicion and 
distrust, and that there has been nothing in the Ger- 
man policy to justify that English suspicion and dis- 
trust. After all, deeds are more important than 
words, and by her deeds Germany has proved for 
forty-two years that she is persistently pacific. Since 
1870 Russia has made war against Turkey and against 



Introduction 13 

Japan. England has made war against the Transvaal. 
Italy has waged war against Turkey. France after 
Fashoda would have declared war against England, 
and after Tangier would have declared war against 
Germany, if France had been prepared. Of all the 
great Powers, Germany alone for nearly half a century 
has been determined to keep the peace of the world. 

The reply to this objection is very simple. I am 
not examining here whether a state of affairs which 
has transformed Europe into an armed camp of six 
million soldiers, and which absorbs for military ex- 
penditure two-thirds of the revenue of European 
states, can be appropriately called a state of peace. 
It is certainly not a pax romana. It is most certainly 
not a pax hritannica. It may be a pax teutonica or 
rather a pax borussica, but such as it is, ruinous and 
demoralizing, it is also lamentably precarious and 
perilously unstable. And if Germany has kept this 
pax horussica for forty-two years, it has not been the 
fault of the German Government. Rather has it been 
kept because she has been prevented from declaring 
war by outside interference; or because she has been 
able to carry out her policy and to achieve her ambi- 
tions without going the length of declaring war, or 
because a war would have been not only a heinous 
crime but a political blunder. 

After 1870 Bismarck twice prepared to deal a 
deadly blow to France, because France was rapidly 
recovering from her wounds and reorganizing her 
army. It was only the Russian intervention which 
prevented the Iron Chancellor from carrying out his 
plans. I am aware that some of the facts have been 
disputed. Such international differences generally are 
twisted and distorted, but the main facts of the 



14 The Anglo-German Problem 

Franco-German incidents of 1875 remain beyond 
cavil and dispute.^ And it is highly significant that 
quite recently a great German scholar, Professor Karl 
Lamprecht of Leipzig University,^ in the conclusion 
of the nineteenth volume of his monumental history, 
should still cynically deplore and regret that in 1875 
Germany should have missed a great opportunity 
and should not have fulfilled her destiny. 

Again, only four years ago, there was a danger of an 
outbreak of war when Austria, supported by Germany, 
annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in flagrant violation of 
the Treaty of Berlin. War would no doubt have been 
declared if Russia had been prepared for it, if she had 
had time to recover from Moukden and Tsushima. 

But the real reason why Germany for forty years 
has kept the peace is because a war would have been 
both fatal and futile, injurious and superfluous. It 
would have been injurious, for it would have arrested 
the growing trade and the expanding industries of the 
empire. And, above all, it would have been super- 
fluous, for in time of peace Germany reaped all the 
advantages which a successful war would have given 
her. For twenty-five years the German Empire 
wielded an unchallenged supremacy on the continent 
of Europe. For twenty years she directed the course 
of international events. 

But since the opening of the twentieth century 
Germany has ceased to be paramount, she has ceased 

' See the instructive revelations in the Memoirs of Sir Robert 
Morier, who was English Ambassador in Berlin. 

' It is noticeable that one of the leaders of the Pan-Germanists, 
Ernst Hasse, was also a professor of Leipzig University. In Pro- 
fessor Lamprecht he has made a brilliant convert who is a host by 
himself. 



Introduction 15 

to control European policy at her own sweet will, and 
weaker States have ceased to be given over to her 
tender mercies. To the Triple Alliance has been 
opposed the Triple Entente. The balance of power 
has been re-established. The three "hereditary 
enemies" — England, France, and Russia — have 
joined hands, and have delivered Europe from the 
incubus of German suzerainty. German diplomacy 
has strained every effort to break the Triple Entente, 
in turn wooing and threatening France and Russia, 
keeping open the Moroccan sore as the Neapolitan 
lazzarone keeps open the wound which ensures his 
living, and finally challenging the naval supremacy of 
England, and preparing to become as powerful at sea 
as she is on the Continent. 

And here we come to one of the crucial points of the 
Anglo-German controversy — the naval policy of the 
German Empire. I advisedly said one of the crucial 
points, for it is by no means the only one, nor even, in 
my opinion, the most important one. As I shall 
presently endeavour to prove, if Germany suddenly 
decided to reduce her naval armaments and to increase 
her army in proportion ^ England would have even 
more serious reasons for anxiety than she has at present. 

Still there can be no doubt that for the present it is 
the naval policy of Germany which is the immediate 
cause of English alarm. England assumes that if 
Germany builds a powerful navy, that navy is mainly 
directed against her. It is built with the purpose of 
wresting from her the mastery of the sea. Unless we 
assume such a motive, it is impossible to account for 
the colossal effort which Germany is making. The 
German people would not willingly bear the double 
burden of a formidable naval expenditure added to 



1 6 The Anglo-German Problem 

their formidable expenditure on the army, they would 
not submit to a chronic deficit, if they did not think 
that the prize which is at stake was worth any effort 
and sacrifice on their part. Such is the obvious and 
anxious question which presents itself to the English 
mind, and I do not think that any official German 
explanation hitherto given is at all adequate or calcu- 
lated to set at rest the public opinions of England. 
Without in the least questioning the abstract right of 
the German people to build any navy they choose, I 
am merely concerned to inquire whether the ostensible 
reasons given can supply us with an adequate motive 
for her naval policy. 

We are told that Germany has widely scattered 
colonies to protect, that she has world-wide commer- 
cial interests to defend, and that important changes 
may suddenly arise in different parts of the world 
^ which might render a powerful navy indispensable. 
For instance, the Chinese Empire or the Turkish 
Empire might break up, and Germany must be in a 
position to speak out in no uncertain voice, and to 
assert her legitimate claims. All the great Powers 
of the world — England, France, Russia, the United 
States, Japan — have built up colonial empires. Why 
should Germany not follow their example whenever 
she has a chance, and whenever a favourable juncture 
of events affords a favourable opportunity? 

At first sight the contention of Germany seems 
reasonable enough, but on closer examination it is 
found to be without foundation, and to provide an 
absolutely inadequate motive for her present naval 
policy. Germany, merely to protect her commercial 
interests, does not need a powerful navy. She does 
not need a navy to fight the Herreros or the South Sea 



Introduction 17 

Islanders. And to defend her political interests in 
any part of the world, her formidable position as a 
continental Power would be sufficient to protect her 
against any wanton attack or any unwarranted 
infringement of her rights. 

It cannot be sufficiently emphasized in this question 
of naval armaments that the position of England and 
Germany is radically different, and that in the two 
countries the army and the navy must serve two 
totally different purposes. 

Under present conditions of international relations, 
as a continental Power, Germany needs no powerful 
navy but needs a powerful army. In at least one 
definite sense it may be said that to Germany the 
army is essentially defensive, whilst the navy is 
mainly offensive. On the contrary, England, as an 
insular and maritime Power, needs no mighty army 
but needs a mighty navy. In the same special sense 
to England the navy is essentially the defensive 
weapon, whilst a big army would be an offensive 
weapon. To put the position and mutual relationship 
more clearly: if to-morrow England started raising 
a powerful army of 500,000 soldiers, assuming that it 
could not conceivably be directed against France and 
Russia, but that it could only be used in alliance with 
France or Russia in a joint attack against Germany, 
Germany would legitimately take alarm; and she 
would naturally argue that England would not make 
such tremendous sacrifices merely to send out an 
eventual punitive expedition to Nigeria or China. 
She would assume that England was preparing for an 
attack on Germany. And just in the same way when 
Germany is adding to her formidable army a formid- 
able navy, which could only be used against England, 



i8 The Anglo-German Problem 

she cannot wondeF if her naval policy gives rise to the 
gravest apprehensions and if the English people draw 
the inevitable inference that Germany, if not indeed 
contemplating an immediate attack, is at least pre- 
paring for such an eventuality, when she judges that 
its necessity has arisen. 

Although the existence of any ultimate aggressive 
design against England has been again and again 
officially denied, it has now been admitted by re- 
sponsible ministers in the Reichstag. It is true that 
it is still expressed euphemistically and in a disguised 
form. We are told that the German navy must be 
sufficiently strong to inspire respect in the English 
people, so that even England must think twice before 
she dares to attack Germany. Since the outburst of 
popular indignation caused by the recent events of 
Agadir, some German writers go much further and 
frankly confess that they can see no reason why Ger- 
many should not challenge the maritime supremacy of 
England, and they suggest that there is no natural 
or divine law which gives to the English people for all 
time to come the mastery of the sea. 

To this German contention the English people reply 
that there does exist a natural law, or, if we prefer, 
economic law, which compels them to retain the 
mastery of the sea. It is not merely the protection 
of her empire, it is not even mainly the protection of 
her oversea trade, which makes sea power an absolute 
necessity for England. There was a time when Britain 
ruled the waves mainly for reasons of empire and 
colonial expansion, but to-day, even if England 
entirely surrendered any maritime ambitions, even 
if she gave up every one of her colonies, she would 
have all the more need to retain command of the sea, 



Introduction 19 

because on it depends not only her existence as an 
empire, but her existence as a nation. If she lost her 
sea power the daily food supply of her citizens would 
be at the mercy of any hostile fleet. In a few weeks 
the English people might be starved into submission 
and servitude, even though her soldiers might win 
another battle of Waterloo on the Continent. 

We are told, it is true, that an invasion of England 
is impossible, and the mere impossibility or even im- 
probability of such an invasion ought to dispose of 
any suspicions of German aggressive designs. We are 
told that naval experts have proved, and recent events 
in the Tripoli war have confirmed, that any German 
attempt suddenly to mobilize and to transport an 
army corps from the German to the English shores 
would present almost insuperable difficulties, and 
would leave an English army ample time to meet the 
attack. 

I am not qualified to deal with the technical argu- 
ment, but it is not necessary to be an expert to realize 
that naval strategy has many surprises; that the 
element of chance and luck plays an even more im- 
portant part in naval than in continental warfare; 
and, above all, that modern inventions, hitherto 
almost untried, may revolutionize the naval battles 
of to-morrow. No expert can calculate or foretell the 
probable course of a naval campaign. It is true that an 
** Invincible Armada" to-day would be less at the 
mercy of the waves ; but she still remains at the mercy 
of other forces which are equally incalculable and 
uncontrollable. We do not know whether even a 
formidable superiority in Dreadnoughts would be de- 
cisive. Even as the sinking of one or two ships might 
block the Kiel Canal, so the explosion of a few mines 



20 The Anglo-German Problem 

might blow up several Dreadnoughts at the very 
beginning of the campaign and thus determine the 
issue of a war. Such an explosion actually did blow 
up part of the Russian fleet before Port Arthur, and 
decided the whole course of events. Nor must we 
forget that within the near future another fleet may 
play an important part in the final result — namely, the 
new fleet of aeroplanes which to-morrow may entirely 
change the conditions of both continental and naval 
warfare. Germany might conceivably send an aerial 
army of several thousand aeroplanes to the English 
capital, which might work more havoc than an in- 
vading army corps. One thing is certain, that if aero- 
technics make as rapid progress in the next five years 
as they have done within the last decade, England, 
for military purposes, will have ceased to be an island. 
But let us assume that the invasion scare is totally 
unfounded. Personally I am inclined to think that the 
fear of a German invasion has haunted far too ex- 
clusively the imagination of the English people, and 
has diverted their attention from another danger far 
more real and far more immediate. With characteristic 
naivete and insular selfishness some jingoes imagine 
that if only the naval armaments of Germany could 
be stopped, all danger to England would be averted. 
But surely the greatest danger to England is not the 
invasion of England : it is the invasion of France and 
Belgium. For in the case of an invasion of England, 
even the Germans admit that the probabilities of 
success would all be against Germany; whilst in the 
case of an invasion of France, the Germans claim that 
the probabilities are all in their favour. It is therefore 
in France and Belgium that the vulnerable point lies, 
the Achilles heel of the British Empire. The German 



Introduction 21 

navy might eventually be useful to keep England in 
check, but, after all, the decisive weapon of attack is 
the German army, and the German people have only 
been prevented by their Anglophobia and megalo- 
mania from seeing this. In the past the battles of 
England have been mainly fought on the Continent, 
and so they will be in the future. A crushing defeat 
of France in the plains of Flanders or Champagne, 
with the subsequent annexation of Northern Belgium 
and of Holland, would be a deadly blow to EngUsh 
supremacy. Well may the British people cling to 
the French entente as a Versicherungsvertrag, and the 
sooner that entente is transformed into an alliance the 
better for England. 

The real point at issue, therefore, is not whether 
Germany could risk or intends to risk an invasion of 
England, but whether she nourishes ambitions and 
aspirations which could only be satisfied at the con- 
clusion of a successful war, or which, if satisfied with- 
out the arbitrament of war, would reduce England to a 
negligible quantity in European politics. That Ger- 
many at present nourishes such ambitions and aspira- 
tions is obvious to any student who keeps in close 
touch with German public opinion. Germany is not 
satisfied with her present boundaries. She does not 
only ask for the open door which England has gener- 
ously given her. She does not only aspire to commer- 
cial expansion. She is bent on territorial expansion. 
She is bent on being not merely a German Empire, 
but a European Empire, and a World Empire. The 
old Napoleonic dream is with us once more. Already 
Austria, far more useful as a loyal ally than if she were 
annexed, is opening for Germany the gates of the 
East and colonizing the south of Europe. Already the 



22 The Anglo-German Problem 

Dual Alliance is politically supreme from Hamburg 
to Salonica and Constantinople. Already the econo- 
mic penetration of Germany and Holland and Belgium 
has transformed those countries into German econo- 
mic dependencies. The political supremacy of the 
German Empire in continental Europe seems, there- 
fore, within reach of immediate practical politics. 
And for such a prize ought not every subject of the 
Kaiser be ready to make any sacrifice? 

There lies the danger in the immediate future, and 
the danger is drawing near. Germany is in no hurry. 
She can resist, and she will resist, popular pressure 
until she is ready. Time is working for her. And 
as Admiral Mahan recently reminded us, despotism, 
which is the curse of Germany in time of peace, may 
become in time of war an element of strength, for it 
ensures unity of purpose, concentration of energy, 
and discipline. 

And let us not imagine that the danger has been 
indefinitely postponed through the conclusion of the 
treaty with France and the solution of the Moroccan 
crisis. Indeed, no solution has been attained. France 
has submitted to a national humiliation, and has been 
bullied into accepting ignominious conditions and 
into conceding to Germany a not unimportant part 
of her colonial empire. Her statesmen have justified 
that retrocession of French territory on the plea that 
it was worth a considerable sacrifice to come to a 
"final understanding" with Germany on the African 
question, and to put an end once for all to the Moroc- 
can imbroglio. Incredible though it seems, moderate 
and responsible German publicists now tell us with 
grim humour that whilst France has been threatened 
into surrendering a great deal, she has obtained 



Introduction 23 

nothing in return. We are told in the most explicit 
terms by Dr. Daniels and by Professor Delbriick that 
the Moroccan question remains an open question, 
that France has been taken in, that Germany has 
made no concession, and that the position of Germany 
in Morocco under the recent treaty conditions is 
stronger than it was under the Treat}^ of Algeciras. 

Every English reader will agree that such weighty 
utterances are painful reading. It is an ominous 
indication of the state of German opinion to be told 
both by the successor of Treitschke in the University 
of Berlin and by the foreign editor of the Preussische 
Jahrbucher that they expect that before two years are 
over "sufficient inflammable material will have accu- 
mulated in Morocco to produce a conflagration." It 
is painful to read that having just emerged from a 
dangerous crisis we shall be confronted within twenty- 
four months with another crisis infinitely more 
dangerous. For is it not obvious that if the German 
Government within two years were once more to 
reopen the Moroccan question, and once more came 
forward with fresh claims for territorial compensation, 
those claims could only be settled by war? And in 
my opinion there never would have been in European 
history a more criminal war on the part of Germany, 
and a more just war on the part of France. 

Such German statements as I have just alluded to 
need no discussion or amplification. Nor do I think 
that it is necessary to say anything more to prove my 
argument and to drive home the conviction that the 
Anglo-German peril is not a vain delusion, that it is 
real, and that it is pressing, I may also claim that I 
have satisfactorily proved my contention that the 
peril does not originate in England or France, but that 



24 The Anglo-German Problem 

it originates with the German people themselves. I 
shall have to consider in the following chapters how 
that Anglo-German peril can best be met. I shall 
examine whether any of the current solutions proposed 
can be accepted as a final settlement of the difficulty, 
and, if no such solution can be accepted, whether it is 
possible to suggest any other remedy which would 
cure the international political malady. 



WHY DOES EUROPE DISTRUST GERMANY? 

I 

One of the most striking features of contemporary 
politics is the tragic moral isolation of Germany. 
Considered individually, few people are more deserving 
of sympathy, are more genial, more unassuming, 
more delightfully simple. Yet collectively the Ger- 
mans have few friends and many enemies. At the 
International Conference of Algeciras, specially con- 
vened at the request of Germany, the German repre- 
sentatives stood confronted with the almost unanimous 
hostility of the great Powers of the world. ^ Even 
the United States, notwithstanding the pressure of 
twenty millions of Americans of German descent, stood 
faithfully by France, and although Austria was thanked 
by the Kaiser for having been the ** loyal second" of 
her German allies, we must not forget that by none are 
the German people more cordially hated than by the 
Slav, Magyar, and Roumanian nations which form 
the majority of the Austrian Empire. 

Nor is the feeling of antipathy to Germany re- 
stricted to the great Powers. Even in those countries 
which, like Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, have 
benefited most from the expansion of German trade, 
the Teutons to-day are as unpopular as the French 
or the English are popular. And this unpopularity 

' See A. Tardieu's La Conference d'Algesiras, 
25 



26 The Anglo-German Problem 

reflects itself in the attitude almost universally pre- 
valent with regard to the German language and 
literature. Whilst German commerce- is increasing by 
leaps and bounds, the moral and intellectual influence 
of German culture is steadily diminishing. It is in- 
finitely less than it was fifty years ago, when Germany 
was a second-rate Power. It is less than that of 
Russia or even Belgium or Norway. There is not 
one contemporary German writer who exerts any- 
thing like the influence which Tolstoy or Ibsen or 
Maeterlinck wields in contemporary thought. Whilst 
the French language is becoming more and more the 
international language of the educated classes on the 
Continent, the German language is almost universally 
neglected, notwithstanding its obvious practical uses. 
In some countries, like Bohemia, it is actually "taboo." 

Even the Germans cannot refuse to see this growing 
hostility which confronts them everywhere, and they 
are compelled to suggest various theories to account 
for it.^ German critics tell us that in France the anti- 
German feeling is due to the bitter memories left by 
the War of 1870: it is the Gallic vindictiveness born of 
defeat. In England it is due to commercial rivalry 
and to a natural envy at the growing prosperity of the 
empire. In all countries the antipathy to Germany is 
mainly the instinctive dread of the weak before the 
strong. Let us examine briefly if those explanations 
are sufficient to account for the universal feelings of 
dislike and distrust which Germany inspires at the 
present day. 

In France it is only too obvious that the Franco- 

* See Harden's lamentations in the Zukunft (September, 191 1): 
" Uns lebt kein Freund auf der weiten Erde" — "We have no friend 
in the wide world." 



Distrust of Germany 27 

German War has left ineffaceable memories behind it. 
But the very persistence of those memories is a 
phenomenon which demands explanation. For it is 
one of the strangest and one of the noblest features of 
human nature that, as a rule, war leaves no permanent 
bitterness behind it. It has often happened, even 
after a long and bitter war, that enemies have drawn 
nearer together, having learned to respect each other 
on the battlefield. During the Seven Years' War 
the French sustained grievous defeats, yet Frederick 
the Great was almost popular after Rossbach. The 
battle of Leipzig was a crushing disaster to the French 
arms, yet Alexander the First, when he entered Paris 
in 1 8 14, was the cynosure of all eyes and the hero of the 
Parisian mob. The English people and the French 
have been for centuries hereditary enemies, yet from 
the days of Cr^cy to the days of Waterloo never has 
defeat rankled long in the minds of the people, and the 
conclusion of peace has generally been the signal in 
France for an outburst of acute Anglomania. Even 
the humiliation of Fashoda has not prevented, a few 
years later, the conclusion of the Entente Cordiale. 
The history of many a battle between France and 
England reads like the description of a tournament 
between the heroes of mediaeval chivalry, and the pre- 
liminary courtesies of Fontenoy — " Tirez les premiers, 
messieurs les Frangais^' ; '^Apres vous, messieurs les 
Anglais'' — are characteristic of many an encounter 
between the two nations. 

The Franco-German War stands alone in modern 
history as one which has left behind it ineradicable 
feelings of hatred and revenge. The chivalry of 
European tradition was conspicuously absent in the 
conduct of that war. The victor hurled against 



28 The Anglo-German Problem 

the vanquished an implacable " V(e victis! " He chose 
to violate that great principle of nationalities which 
has become the foundation of the political morality 
of Europe. In an age of democracy he chose to dis- 
pose of the destinies of millions of French people 
without their consent. He chose to treat the Alsa- 
cians and Lorrains as if they were so many pawns in 
the grim Kriegspiel, so many slaves to be transferred 
from one owner to another. 

It is not relevant to our purpose to examine how 
far Bismarck was justified in his policy. We are 
only trying to explain the feelings which that policy 
has evoked in France towards Germany. Nor must 
we forget that the explanation of bitter memories 
and of a feeling of revenge for wrongs endured applies 
only to France. It certainly does not apply to the 
relations between Germany and England. The Ger- 
mans and the English have never fought against each 
other in the past. Rather have they fought side by 
side. There is no historical quarrel between the two 
nations, unless a patriotic German historian were to 
rise som.e day and use as a grievance against England 
that Wellington has deprived Bliicher of the glory 
and the laurels of Waterloo. 

To explain the antipathy felt towards Germany shall 
we fall back on commercial rivalry as the final explan- 
ation? Even that explanation will not hold. Com- 
mercial rivalry at the present day may produce 
discomfort and anxiety. Between civilized nations 
it does not produce hatred, unless the rivalry be 
manifestly unfair and dishonest. 

Twenty years ago the English people may have 
resented German competition because they actually 
did consider it unfair, and not without some plausible 



Distrust of Germany 29 

reasons. German trade originally ousted English 
trade from many markets because conditions were not 
equal, because the standard of living was lower in 
Germany, because wages and profits were smaller and 
hours longer, and because the goods "made in Ger- 
many" were often a cheap and nasty imitation of 
British goods. The British workman may have 
legitimately felt towards the German artisan some- 
thing of the feeling which a trade-unionist workman 
feels towards a "blackleg" who accepts lower pay 
and does not play the game. And the English feeling 
seemed all the more justified because, whilst Ger- 
many raised a tariff wall keeping out English goods, 
England kept her doors open and allowed the German 
Protected Trade to grow and expand under the sun- 
shine of British Free Trade. 

But the days of unreasonable British resentment 
and of depreciation of their rivals have now long 
passed away. If originally the British manufacturer 
may have shown an undue tendency to attribute Ger- 
man expansion to unfair methods of competition, he 
has long ago ceased to underrate the splendid qualities 
of his commercial rivals. Indeed to-day the English 
nation seems rather to err on the other side, and to 
unduly extol the superiority of German methods. 
To-day the Englishman admits, like a sportsman, 
that where he is being beaten, he is beaten in a fair 
game. He admits that the average German works 
harder, that he is better trained, that he shows greater 
adaptability to the needs of his customers, that he 
possesses a better knowledge of foreign countries and 
foreign languages. The praise of German qualities 
and German attainments is to-day the burden of every 
British consular report. 



30 The Anglo-German Problem 

We must therefore repeat that commercial rivalry, 
if it may cause grave anxiety, does not produce, and 
has not produced, mutual dislike or mutual deprecia- 
tion. And even if we were inclined to explain the 
estrangement between England and Germany by 
commercial rivalry, that explanation would not apply 
to other countries, like Belgium and Holland and 
Denmark, where Germany is equally unpopular. 
Belgium and Holland, so far from suffering from 
German expansion, have prospered in consequence of 
that expansion — two-thirds of the trade credited to 
Belgium and Holland are really German transit trade 
— yet the anti-German feeling is even stronger in those 
small countries than it is in England, and a Flemish- 
speaking Belgian will only learn German under 
absolute compulsion. It may be that those small 
countries are imbued with a salutary terror of German 
political supremacy. It may be that Belgium and 
Holland and Denmark are dreading to be politically 
absorbed. But here again the instinct of self-pre- 
servation alone is not sufficient to explain the anti- 
pathy which those nations feel towards their mighty 
neighbour. The same dread existed in Belgium under 
Napoleon the Third; yet if France was feared as a 
government, it did not inspire any feelings of anti- 
pathy and much less any feelings of hatred. Dur- 
ing the last generation England was on several occa- 
sions a controlling factor in world politics, yet, with 
the exception of a brief period during the Boer 
War, the English people have never been generally 
unpopular. 

The truth is that none of the causes which we have 
just examined — neither the bitter memories of past 
wars, nor commercial rivalry, nor the dread of political 



Distrust of Germany 31 

absorption — are sufficient to explain the universal 
distrust and dislike which other nations feel towards 
Germany. 

Those causes indeed seem inadequate to the German 
publicists themselves. So startling and so widespread 
does this antipathy appear even to German observers 
that in order to explain it they have been compelled to 
imagine a malignant and universal conspiracy against 
the German people. Even as French historians used 
to be always looking out for some traitor or some 
scapegoat in order to explain a national defeat — 
Ganelon, Bourbon, Villeneuve, Dupont, Bazaine, 
Dreyfus — even so German historians to-day assume 
that their enemies have organized an Anti-German 
Trust to hem in and to isolate the German people. 
It is a generally accepted assumption in Germany 
that King Edward the Seventh was the arch-plotter in 
this European conspiracy, and this is one of the many 
imaginary grievances of Germany against England. 

As we shall discuss the grievance in a subsequent 
chapter, we need not pause to consider it here. We 
need only mention it as an illustration of the remark- 
able psychology which is to-day prevalent in the 
German people; and it will be more to the purpose if 
we proceed at once to examine and to discuss the real 
and deep-seated reasons which account for the feelings 
which the German people inspire in other nations. 



II 



The inherent qualities of the German race and an 
extraordinary conjuncture of favourable circumstances 
have raised the German people to a position of 
political supremacy and commercial prosperity which 



32 The Anglo-German Problem 

have exceeded their wildest dreams, and this startling 
accession of wealth and power after centuries of 
humiliation has developed to an inordinate degree 
self-conceit and self-assertion. We need not judge the 
German harshly on that account. All young nations 
have passed through those political measles. If to- 
day that disease is more virulent in Germany, it is 
because German greatness is more recent and has 
been more sudden. Politically and economically the 
Germans are the parvenus and upstarts of Europe, 
and they suffer from exactly those shortcomings which 
characterize the parvenu — vanity, vulgarity, and ag- 
gressiveness. The Germans have not had time to ac- 
quire that grace and tactfulness which have generally 
prevented French patriotism from being offensive to 
others. Neither have they acquired that reticence 
and reserve which have generally characterized the 
English. It almost seems as if the German people 
themselves were amazed and dazed by the startling 
contrast between their former and their present for- 
tunes, and a benevolent critic might almost assert 
that their present elation is a sign of an unconscious 
and instinctive humility. 

Whatever may be the cause of the state of mind 
of the Germans, they are certainly suffering just 
now from acute megalomania. The abnormal self- 
conceit, the inflated national consciousness, express 
themselves in a thousand ways, some of which are 
naive and harmless, whilst others are grossly offensive. 
They show themselves in a craving for titles and in 
gaudy and tasteless public buildings ^ ; in the thousand 
and one statues of Bismarck and William the First; 
they reveal themselves in the articles of journalists 

* See an amusing article, "Ornamente," in the Zukunft. 



Distrust of Germany 33 

and in the writings of historians; but above all, the 
German megalomania finds expression in the seven 
thousand speeches and in the three hundred uniforms 
of the Kaiser. In examining the influence of William 
the Second we shall come to the conclusion that it is his 
defects far more than his virtues that have made him 
the representative hero of the German people. His 
winged words voice the aspirations of his subjects. 
Like the Kaiser, every German believes that he is 
"the salt of the earth " — * ' Wir sind das Salz der Erde." 
Like Nietzsche, the modern German believes that the 
world must be ruled by a superman, and that he is 
the superman. Like Houston Stewart Chamberlain, 
the German is convinced that he belongs to a super- 
race, and that the Teuton has been the master-builder 
of European civilization. 

National self -appreciation does not necessarily 
imply depreciation of the foreigner. Even the most 
extravagant patriotism of the French people has 
rarely prevented them from doing justice to the quali- 
ties of their neighbours. All through the nineteenth 
century every representative French writer — Michelet, 
Taine, Renan, Quinet — has glorified the virtues of the 
German race and the achievements of its thinkers 
and artists. In the heyday of Napoleonic tyranny 
Madame de Stael published her classical treatise, 
De V Allemagney the most generous tribute ever paid to 
German genius. During the horrors of the Franco- 
German War Victor Hugo in VAnnee Terrible con- 
tinued to extol German thought and German art; 
whereas, on the other side of the Rhine, historians 
like Mommsen and Treitschke were reviling the Gaul 
and trampling on the vanquished. 

Nor have the English people lagged behind the 



34 The Anglo-German Problem 

French in their recognition of German culture. Ever 
since Coleridge, with all their insularity, they have 
done justice to Germany, all the more sincerely, per- 
haps, the less they knew about her. For several 
generations the English people have tried to assimilate 
German philosophy: they have translated German 
theologians and higher critics; they have welcomed 
to their universities German professors, like Max 
Muller. It is not too much to say that from the 
beginning of the nineteenth century there has been a 
continuous German tradition in English literature. 
With Carlyle and De Quincey, with Froude and Free- 
man, with Kingsley and Seeley, that tradition, whilst 
underrating the masterpieces of the French genius, 
has systematically overrated the productions of 
German thought and German art. 

It would have been well if German writers had 
shown the same generous appreciation of the French 
and the English mind. But ever since 1870 the Ger- 
mans, whilst allowing for individual freaks of genius, 
seem to be blind to the merits of other nations, and 
have claimed for themselves a monopoly of culture. 
In their judgment the Russian race are rotten before 
they have grown to maturity, as they showed during 
the Russo-Japanese War. Even so the English are 
an effete and decadent people, as their recent military 
history proves. A recent article of Dr. Carl Peters 
on the decline of the English race which appeared in 
Die Woche is representative of countless similar ut- 
terances. As for the French they are doomed to 
premature extinction. It is true that, like the Greeks 
of antiquity at the time of their decline, the French 
still continue to produce a few great men in literature, 
science, and art : an Anatole France, a Pasteur, and a 



Distrust of Germany 35 

Rodin. It is also true that even in applied science 
they are still leading the way in such industries as 
the motor-car and the aeroplane. But what is the 
little aeroplane of the Frenchman compared with the 
giant airship of Germany? Is it not a fact that a 
thousand French aeroplanes do not cost or count as 
much as one Zeppelin ? 

The self-assertion of the Germans and the contempt 
for the foreigner reveal themselves in their political 
dealings with other nations. German statesmen con- 
tinue the methods of Bismarck without having his 
genius. German politicians delight in shaking the 
mailed fist, in waving the national banner with the 
Imperial black eagle, the ominous and symbolical bird 
of prey. Wherever they meet with opposition they 
at once resort to comminatory messages. Compare 
the methods of the Emperor William with those 
of Edward the Seventh. Nothing illustrates better 
the differences between the characteristics of English 
and German diplomacy than the dramatic contrast 
between the bragging, indiscreet, impulsive, explosive 
manner of the Kaiser and the quiet, courteous manner 
of the English monarch. Nothing explains better the 
striking success which has attended English policy 
and the no less striking failure which has attended 
German policy. For in international as well as in 
private relations, intellectual superiority is often as 
efficient a weapon as an appeal to brute force. And 
all the might of the German Empire has not saved the 
German foreign policy from persistent bankruptcy. 
That bankruptcy is unanimously admitted even in 
Germany, and partly accounts for the present temper 
of the nation. The times have changed, and even the 
weak cannot now be bullied into submission. At the 



36 The Anglo-German Problem 

Algeciras Conference even those small nations whose 
most obvious interest it was to side with Germany 
gave their moral support to France. 

There still remains for us to examine one deeper 
reason why Germany is distrusted and disliked in 
Europe. She is mainly distrusted because she con- 
tinues to he the reactionary force in international politics. 
Outside the sphere of German influence the democratic 
ideal has triumphed all over the civilized world, after 
centuries of heroic struggle and tragic catastrophes. 
But in Germany the old dogma is still supreme. 
Wherever German power has made itself felt for the 
last forty years — in Italy and Austria, in Russia and 
Turkey — it has countenanced reaction and tyranny. 
In politics Germany is to-day what Austria and Russia 
were in the days of the Holy Alliance, the power of 
darkness. Whilst in the provinces of science and art 
the German people are generally progressive, in poli- 
tics the German Government is consistently retro- 
gressive. It cannot be sufficiently emphasized and 
repeated that, more than any other State — more even 
than Russia — Prussia stands in the way of political 
advance. It was Prussia that helped to crush the 
Polish struggle for freedom in 1863; when, a few years 
ago, English public opinion was protesting against the 
Armenian massacres, the Kaiser stood loyally by 
Abdul Hamid and propped his tottering throne; when 
the Russian Liberals were engaged in a life-and-death 
struggle with Czardom, the Kaiser gave his moral 
support to Russian despotism. It is not too much 
to say that it is the evil influence of Prusso-Germany 
alone which keeps despotism alive in the modern world. 

I do not believe that all nations have the govern- 
ment they deserve, and that they necessarily deserve 



Distrust of Germany 37 

the government they have, any more than I believe 
that every husband has the wife he deserves or de- 
serves the wife he has. Fortunate or unfortunate 
accidents may determine poHtical as they may deter- 
mine matrimonial unions. In the course of time 
unexpected shortcomings may reveal themselves — 
incompatibilities of temperament between govern- 
ment and people as between husband and wife. At 
the same time it must be admitted that the German 
people have often too patiently and passively sub- 
mitted to the tyranny of their rulers — that again and 
again they have sanctioned a government policy 
which would have caused a revolutionary outburst 
in any free country; and it is deeply to be regretted 
that they should not have sometimes turned against 
their own oppressors some of those angry passions 
which they have so freely exhibited against neighbour- 
ing nations. We must not forget that Bismarck was 
only able to realize his gigantic schemes in flagrant 
violation of the German Constitution. When Par- 
liament refused to obey his behests he dismissed it. 
For several years before the Danish and Austrian wars 
he increased taxation and raised revenue without 
troubling about the consent of the Prussian Diet — 
without even observing the outward forms and fictions 
of the law. And it is strictly true that the Hohen- 
zollern may legitimately claim that the triumphs of the 
German arms have not been triumphs of the German 
people, but of the Hohenzollern dynasty. 

We shall be able in a subsequent chapter to prove 
abundantly that, politically, the German people con- 
tinue to remain in a state of pupilage and tutelage. 
The Prussian bureaucracy continues to apply against 
its own subjects those despotic methods which have 



38 The Anglo-German Problem 

ensured its predominance in the past. Prussia con- 
tinues to oppress the Danes and the Poles. Mr. 
Norman Angell tells us that if Germany were to annex 
part of Belgium or of France, no individual German 
would be any the richer by one single acre of land, for 
the land would still remain the private property of 
each individual Frenchman or Belgian. That asser- 
tion, unfortunately, would not hold for Prussia, for 
the Prussian bureaucrat does not recognize any inalien- 
able rights of individuals wherever the interests of 
the State are supposed to be at stake. The Prussian 
Government are depriving the Polish landowner and 
the Polish peasant of the land of their fathers simply 
because the Polish landowner and the Polish peasant 
intend to remain Poles and refuse to become ** Prus- 
sianized. " It is true that the policy of the "Colon- 
ization Commission" has been a ghastly failure. Yet 
that Commission still survives, as a glaring instance 
of the extremities to which the Prussian Government 
will resort in case of necessity, and as a proof of their 
ignorance of the most elementary facts of political 
science. 

We are therefore reluctantly driven to the conclusion 
that the psychological, moral, and political causes 
which we have briefly analysed are amply sufficient 
to account for the distrust and suspicion which 
Germany inspires everywhere in Liberal Europe. 
And the distrust is not the result of ignorance or 
national prejudice : it is a reasoned conviction and the 
result of a prolonged experience. No doubt in most 
cases it is necessary to distinguish between the govern- 
ment and the people. No doubt also there are many 
indications that the power of Prussian militarism and 
Prussian feudalism is seriously imperilled, that the 



Distrust of Germany 39 

German Empire is in rapid transition, and that the law 
of acceleration which characterizes economic changes 
will also ultimately prevail in German politics. In 
the meantime Prussia continues to be the storm-centre 
of Europe — the Prussian menace is more threatening 
than ever. And until that menace is removed, and as 
long as the Prussian spirit shall prevail in the councils 
of the German Empire, it behoves us to be vigilant, 
and not to forget that European liberty and European 
democracy are still at the mercy of military force and 
political tyranny. 



SOME PARADOXES AND CONTRADICTIONS 
OF MODERN GERMANY 

It is one of the axioms of practical diplomacy that 
when two nations wish to settle their differences and 
wish to bring complicated negotiations to a successful 
termination, their diplomatic representatives shall 
not only consider all the facts immediately bearing on 
the questions to be settled, but shall also take into 
account the "personal equation," the temper and 
character of the litigants. Let us remember this 
preliminary condition of our problem, and do our 
utmost to get a precise knowledge of the present 
characteristics of the German people. 

When we are asked to formulate a deliberate 
opinion on the character of a friend whom we have 
known for a lifetime, we hesitate and pause and ponder 
considering the complexity of human nature and the 
infirmity of our judgment. On the contrary, when we 
are asked to pass judgment, not on one individual, but 
on millions of whom we have no direct knowledge, and 
about whom we have very little indirect information, 
we do not seem to feel the slightest hesitation in ex- 
pressing a strong and unqualified opinion; and gener- 
ally the less we do know, the stronger that opinion 
is likely to be. Forsooth, in the opinion of certain 
arm-chair politicians, are not all French people 
frivolous! are not all English people utilitarians 

40 



Some Paradoxes and Contradictions 41 

or individualists! are not all Russians corrupt or 
superstitious ! 

As a matter of fact, to any thoughtful student of 
international politics there is no more delicate and 
difficult task than to express a competent opinion on 
any great collection of human beings. All generaliza- 
tions on national character must be subject to con- 
siderable limitations. This is especially true with 
regard to the German people. In the case of Germany, 
any sweeping generalizations are manifestly futile 
and unreal. We have continually to qualify and 
modify our judgments; we have continually to dis- 
tinguish between the North and the South, between 
Catholics and Protestants, between the government 
and the people ; we must constantly keep in mind, in 
judging the German people as a whole, that although 
they have been welded into an empire, they have not 
really achieved national unity : which is hardly aston- 
ishing when we consider that the German Empire is 
composed of many elements heterogeneous in race 
and religion — Danes and Poles, Alsacians and Hano- 
verians — and that it is only forty years since 
those heterogeneous elements have been politically 
combined. 

The history of civilization abundantly proves that 
spiritual unity is infinitely more difficult to realize 
than political unity. Spiritual unity necessarily 
brings about political unity ; political unity may never 
be followed by spiritual unity. Certainly the German 
people have not drawn any nearer to its realization 
after forty years of empire. Indeed, they continue 
to present to us at the beginning of the twentieth 
century a bewildering mixture of spiritual paradoxes 
and political contradictions. It is the purpose of this 



42 The Anglo-German Problem 

chapter briefly to analyze and to explain some of those 
paradoxes and contradictions. 



The German people of the past, as they were 
described, for instance, a hundred years ago by 
Madame de Stael in her classical book, De VAllemagne, 
were incurable idealists and dreamers, artists and 
musicians. Politically they were broken up into five 
hundred principalities, and were apparently incapable 
of co-operation and combination. The educated 
German at that time seemed to possess only ideal and 
moral values. Like the French humanitarians and 
rationalists of the eighteenth century, whose loyal 
disciples they were, the great German writers and 
poets of the Golden Age of German literature — Lessing 
and Herder, Goethe and Schiller — had little feeling 
for the reaHties of national life. The German was not 
a zoon politikon, a political animal. He looked at 
political and social problems from the universal, not 
from the national point of view. The poet Heine, 
summing up in a famous epigram that idealistic ten- 
dency o£ the German mind, as contrasted with the 
tendencies of the French and the English, tells us that 
to the English belonged the empire of the sea, to the 
French belonged the empire of the continent, and to 
the Germans belonged the empire of the air. 

To-day the German has ceased to be content with 
the empire of the air. He is not even satisfied with 
having achieved the empire of the continent; he now 
aims at the conquest of the sea. 

As for the conquest of the air, he still claims it. 
But the air to the modern German is no longer the 



Some Paradoxes and Contradictions 43 

metaphorical and symbolical element which Heine 
meant in his epigram; the "empire of the air" is no 
longer the empire of pure thought and poetry — it is 
the military control and possession of the third element 
through airships and balloons. The German of 
to-day still wants to attain to the upper regions of the 
atmosphere, but no more on the wings of imagination, 
but transported in well-equipped battalions in the 
leviathan ships of Count Zeppelin. The German of 
to-day still wants to rise and to soar, but no longer 
in order to sow broadcast the seeds of ideas from the 
high altitudes of speculation, but rather to throw 
down bombs and explosives. That we should be left in 
no doubt as to the absolute " transvaluation of moral 
values" which has taken place in modern Germany, 
Emperor William in one of his illuminative and im- 
pulsive speeches has told us who is the greatest 
German of the nineteenth century. Let the ignorant 
foreigner make no further mistake. The supreme 
incarnation of German genius and character is no 
longer Goethe or Beethoven, Kant or Wagner. The 
true German superman is Count Zeppelin, the new 
viking of the air, the creator of the military aerial 
fleet. 

To-day the German glorifies in being a realist, a 
Realpolitiker . He thinks only of political power and 
colonial expansion, and he conceives power in its most 
material form — the power of the sword and the power 
of money, which must ultimately attend the power of 
the sword. Even when he discusses abstract questions 
of morality might is the supreme test of right. Only 
a few months ago Professor Hans Delbriick, discussing 
in a liberal spirit the petty persecutions of the Danish 
population in Schleswig-Holstein by the Prussian 



44 The Anglo-German Problem 

Government, blamed the bureaucracy, not because 
they were violating the rights of the Danish people, 
but because, by following their methods, they were 
acting against the interests of the State and undermin- 
ing its power. Professor Delbriick condemned the 
Prussianizing policy, not because it meant to the 
Danes a violation of right, but because it brought to 
the Prussian State a diminution of might. 

II 

We come to a second and no less striking contradic- 
tion which is at the root of most political difficulties 
in the German Empire. Germany once was the lead- 
ing Protestant country, the country of Luther, the 
nursery of that Higher Criticism and of that rational- 
ist theology which has ruled in British universities 
and British churches for the last generation. And 
that was especially true of Northern Germany and 
Prussia. For that very reason the Catholic South 
gave its allegiance to Austria. It was the historical 
mission of Austria to unite all the German-speaking 
people into a Greater Germany, to bring them back 
into the fold of the Catholic Church, and to recon- 
stitute the Holy Roman Empire. Until the very eve 
of Sadowa, the leaders of the Catholic party sided with 
the Habsburg, and considered the possible victory 
of Prussia as a German disaster.^ After the crushing 
defeat of Austria, the Catholic Church, under the 
guidance of Bishop Ketteler, gave up a forlorn hope, 
and decided that it would be wiser to come to terms 
with the victor. But the political conversion of the 

^ This has been convincingly proved by Goyau, VAllemagne 
religieuse. 



Some Paradoxes and Contradictions 45 

Catholics had come too late. The feeling of the 
Protestant North had been roused, and the aggres- 
sive attitude of the Ultramontanes precipitated the 
conflict. The cry of the National Liberals, ''Los 
von Rom,'' became the watchword of the Prussian 
statesmen. After the Franco-German War Bismarck 
engaged in a life-and-death struggle of "culture" 
against ignorance and superstition. The conflict was 
fought with all the bitterness which always attends a 
religious war. The Catholic Church felt the mailed 
fist of the Iron Chancellor. Schools were closed, 
religious orders were expelled, bishops and cardinals 
were sent to prison. But the power of Rome proved 
too strong even for Bismarck, as it had proved too 
strong for the Hohenstaufen, for Louis the Fourteenth, 
and for Napoleon. David triumphed over Goliath. 
Little Windthorst compelled the Giant to beat an 
ignominious retreat and to go to Canossa. 

Since the end of the Kulturkampf, and the extinc- 
tion of the National Liberals as the controlling party 
in the Reichstag, the political and religious situation 
in Germany has dramatically changed. German 
Protestantism, no doubt, continues to provide great 
scholars and to dominate in the universities. His 
Excellency Professor von Harnack is only one amongst 
an innumerable band of Higher Critics and Church 
historians and theologians. Professor Drews, who 
in his Myth of Christ attempts to deny the historical 
existence of Jesus, is the lineal successor of David 
Friedrich Strauss. In point of numbers the Protest- 
ant population is still stronger by one-third than the 
Catholic population. In point of wealth the Protest- 
ants are incomparably richer than the Catholics. 
But as a Church, Protestantism is a dwindling force; 



46 The Anglo-German Problem 

as a political power she has ceased to dominate. It 
is the Catholic party, the Zentrum, which is the ruling 
party in the Reichstag. If the German Government 
cannot do and will not do all that the Centre demands, 
they cannot achieve anything which the Centre re- 
fuses to sanction; and before even considering any 
legislative measure, whatsoever it may be, it is a 
preliminary condition that the approhetur of the 
Ultramontane leaders be secured. One of the greatest 
personal forces of modern Germany, Friedrich Nau- 
mann, in his book on German political parties, sums 
up the whole situation in a phrase which is hardly an 
exaggeration: ''Germany has become, politically, a 
more prosperous Spain. " 

In vain did Prince von Biilow attempt to break up, 
in 1907, the power of the Ul tramontanes. Where 
Bismarck had failed it was not likely that his epigon, 
with all his diplomatic ingenuity, was going to succeed. 
Biilow attempted to form an unnatural coalition of 
the Reactionary-Radical bloc. The bloc was burst 
after a twelvemonth, and the Chancellor, after a 
nine years' rule, had to withdraw from the political 
stage, and he has now ample leisure in his Roman 
villa to meditate on the vanity of human greatness, on 
the ingratitude of princes, on the complex paradox 
of German politics, and on the omnipotence of the 
feeble old priest in the Vatican. 

The Catholic Centre continues to-day to present a 
solid front against both Socialists and Liberals. The 
Catholic Church continues to have its own charities, 
its own denominational schools which receive the 
Government grants under its own inspectors, to 
extend its Government patronage, and to fill the public 
services with its nominees. The Roman Catholic 



Some Paradoxes and Contradictions 47 

Church is more and more a State within a State, "im- 
perium in imperio. " 

The Lutheran King of Prussia is gradually trans- 
forming himself into a Holy Roman Emperor; Holy 
because he is ruler by right divine, Roman because he 
receives his orders from the Eternal City. 



Ill 



There is a third contradiction which strikes the 
foreigner in the Germany of to-da}^ and this is the 
contradiction between German action and German 
thought. It seems as if the German were seeking in 
the sphere of the intellect a freedom which is denied 
him in the sphere of politics, and as if he felt the need 
of avenging himself against the abuses of authority 
in practical life by glorifying anarchy in philosophy 
and art. Certainly in the province of thought the 
German leaves all the landmarks of the past behind 
him. He has no respect for tradition or authority. 
He gives free play to his fancy. He follows the newest 
fashions, "die neue Philosophic, die neurere Philo- 
sophic, die neueste Philosophic." Each thinker out- 
bids his competi or in the boldness of his innovations. 
In England the most popular philosophers or theolo- 
gians are those thinkers who advocate a reconciliation 
between religion and science, between the claims of the 
present and the claims of the past, the writings of 
Sir Oliver Lodge, or Benjamin Kidd, or William James, 
or Bergson. On the contrary, in Germany the most 
popular works are those of materialists like Haeckel 
or Bolsche, and, above all, the writings of heralds of 
revolt like Nietzsche. And Nietzsche is universally 
popular, not because of his intellectual integrity, not 



48 The Anglo-German Problem 

because of his fine moral personality, but because he 
is an iconoclast, an anti-Christian; he is the man who 
philosophizes with a hammer, the man who proclaims 
the twilight of the gods, the man who has transvalued 
all the moral values of humanity. 

But once the German leaves the realm of pure 
thought he becomes again the bourgeois and the 
Philistine. He becomes the incarnation of those very 
defects which his favourite philosophers have been 
denouncing; he who a moment ago was defying the 
gods, now submits to the insolence of a subaltern 
officer; he who a moment ago claimed his absolute 
liberty of thought, and railed against the tyranny of 
superstition, now submits to the most petty regula- 
tions of the man in a uniform with a pointed helmet; 
he who a moment ago demanded that the last barriers 
of the moral law shall be taken down, and that each 
man shall be a law to himself in practical life, is con- 
fronted at every step with the fateful words: ''Es isi 
verbotenT' 

In the province of action the German is narrowly 
national. Every morning at breakfast he expects 
that his favourite newspaper shall provide him with 
a good slashing attack upon the Englishman, the 
Frenchman, and the Russian. Yet in literature and 
art his tastes are mainly French and English and 
Russian. His favourite authors are Anatole France 
and Maeterlinck, Gorki, Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde and 
Bernard Shaw, Ibsen and d'Annunzio. 

It is difficult for an Englishman to realize the cos- 
mopolitanism and the catholicity of German taste. In 
England Gorki and Ibsen are little more than names, 
and we are sure that some of their later plays would be 
hissed off the stage. We remember listening with 



Some Paradoxes and Contradictions 49 

impatience in one of the most important theatres of 
Berlin to an infinitely dull play of Gorki — The Child- 
ren of the Sun — and we found to our amazement that 
the play was listened to with rapt attention by a full 
house. In England Monna Vanna is still forbidden by 
the censor. In Germany it has been acted thousands 
of times in every little theatre of the empire. It is not 
necessary to speak of the popularity of Shakespeare, 
for Shakespeare has become as much a German classic 
as an English classic. As for Mr. Bernard Shaw, it 
can be said without exaggeration that he is a greater 
favourite in Germany than in England. We have 
seen John Bull and his Other Island, and even Man 
and Superman, played to empty houses in one of the 
two theatres of Edinburgh. In Dresden or Leipzig 
it would probably have been difficult to secure a seat. 



IV 



All those contradictions ultimately resolve them- 
selves into a contradiction between the past and the 
present. Nowhere are those contradictions so glaring. 
Nowhere has the past left more abiding traces. It 
seems as if the German people had only yesterday 
emerged from the Middle Ages ; and, whilst remaining 
under their influence, had suddenly plunged into and 
become intoxicated with a new world. In the German 
Empire the times of the Hohenstaufen and the times of 
the HohenzoUern still co-exist side by side. If you 
visit Cologne or any of the old cities on the Rhine or 
in Southern Germany, the ancient town halls, the 
proud "burgs" and strongholds dominating the valley, 
the quaint and narrow streets with their protruding 
gables, the venerable Gothic cathedrals, all take our 
4 



50 The Anglo-German Problem 

imaginations back to the Middle Ages. But take 
the electric car to the new industrial suburbs, with 
their overhead railways, with their towering chim- 
neys, the steeples of the new German faith, with their 
huge brand new factories, and you might believe 
yourself to be in Chicago or St. Louis, except for the 
greater cleanliness of the towns and the presence of the 
ubiquitous Schutzmann. 

This comparison between the new industrial Ger- 
many and the cities of the United States is by no 
means far fetched or exaggerated. Acute observers 
like M. Jules Huret have again and again pointed out 
the resemblance between the industrial cities of West- 
phalia and the cities of the American West. The 
growth of Crefeld, Barmen, Elberfeld, has been almost 
as rapid as the growth of the mushroom towns in the 
New World. 



And last, but not least, we would like to draw 
attention to another contradiction and paradox which 
has a very important relation to the problems dis- 
cussed in this book. We are referring to the over- 
bearing pride and tenacity with which the German 
asserts his nationality at home and the excessive 
humility and unconcern with which the German 
merges his nationality abroad. 

It is almost pathetic to hear German professors and 
historians constantly emphasizing the pure and in- 
delible character of the German race and nationality, 
to emphasize the reines Deutschtum and the Deutsche 
Gesinnung. As a matter of fact, so little has any 
specific and ineffaceable German character stamped 



Some Paradoxes and Contradictions 51 

itself on the individual citizen that the facility with 
which the German, once he has left his country, is 
assimilated, almost bespeaks a total absence of any 
political personality. 

In other words, the German emphasizes his political 
personality when he is in a majority. He sinks it 
when he is in a minority. He attempts, and almost in- 
variably without success, to impose his nationality by 
force and by war, and yet under normal conditions 
and in times of peace he cannot resist absorption. In 
other words, the German is the most incapable of 
assimilating others, the least imperial race, and, at 
the same time, the most easily assimilated by other 
races. 

The French-Canadian, although loyal to the British 
flag, remains for ever a French-Canadian. A Dutch- 
man rem.ains a Dutchman, and doggedly resists ab- 
sorption in South Africa. An Englishman remains 
hopelessly English, and wherever he goes he carries 
with him his golf clubs and his evening suit, his habits 
and his prejudices, his political creed and his Bible. 
On the other hand, twenty millions of Germans and 
descendants of German settlers in the United States 
have been absorbed in less than two generations ; they 
are now merged in the American Commonwealth, and 
lost to the Vaterland. 

And let it be noted that the phenomenon is by no 
means restricted to distant continents. It is even 
more conspicuous on the continent of Europe. Where- 
ever a minority of Germans is settled on the same 
territory with a minority of Poles, Russians, or Hun- 
garians, the Germans tend to be absorbed. Thus 
the proportion of the German-speaking to the non- 
German population steadily diminishes, although, 



52 The Anglo-German Problem 

after the Russians, the Germans are the most prolific 
race in Europe. 

We have not discussed the foregoing contradictions 
and paradoxes of modern Germany in any spirit of 
carping criticism, nor for the idle satisfaction of 
pointing out the irony and the tragi-comedy of her 
poHtics. On the contrary, we fully sympathize with 
the difficulties of the German people. But whilst, 
sympathizing with those difficulties, it is absolutely 
necessary from the outset of our inquiry to realize 
them clearly and to explain them if we wish to under- 
stand the present complex and perplexing situation of 
which the political paradoxes and contradictions of 
modern Germany are both the cause and the result. 

And realizing those paradoxes and contradictions, 
if ever we are inclined on account of them to depreciate 
the German character, we shall remember that the 
German people are the victims of historical fatalities 
and geographical conditions over which they have 
had little control. ''Tout comprendre^ c'est tout par- 
donnerf' Considering the enormous advance made 
by the German people, one would think that to-day 
they have outlived those fatalities and that they are 
strong enough to conquer their liberties. But alas! 
an unbiassed study of the situation will soon drive us 
to the conclusion that historical and geographical 
fatalities are still sufficiently operative to provide 
the reactionary with arguments for perpetuating the 
present despotism and militarism. 



PRUSSIA AND GERA/EANY 

In the foregoing chapter we drew attention to some 
of the paradoxes and contradictions of modern 
Germany. There still remains to emphasize and to 
explain what is perhaps the most striking paradox, 
the most glaring contradiction of them all. The 
contradiction is the essential unity and identity of 
Prussia and Germany for political and military pur- 
poses, and, on the other hand, their absolute diversity 
for every other purpose and in every other capacity. 
And the paradox is the absorption of the whole by the 
part, the total surrender of the Germans who are the 
majority, to the Prussians who are the minority, and 
a minority to whom the Germans are vastly superior 
in intellectual and artistic gifts and attainments, and 
for whom they feel little sympathy. 

It is difficult to exaggerate the political domination 
of Germany by Prussia. The practice belies the 
theory : it is not as German Emperor, but as Prussian 
King that William the Second rules the confederation. 
The larger is merged in the smaller. The poor barren 
plains of Brandenburg and Pomerania rule over the 
smiling vineyards and romantic mountains of the 
south and west. The German people are governed 
more completely from Berlin and Potsdam than the 
French were ever governed from Paris and Versailles. 
And they are governed with an iron hand. In theory, 
every part of the empire may have a proportional 

53 



54 The Anglo-German Problem 

share in the administration of the country ; in reality, 
Prussia has the ultimate political and financial control. 
Germany pays the taxes; Prussia spends them. Ger- 
many provides the soldiers; Prussia commands them. 
And the Prussian War Lord and his Junkers in the last 
resort decide the issues of peace and war. 

To realize how complete is the Prussian control we 
need only consider the fact that in the supreme Federal 
Parliament — the Bundesrat — for forty-two years the 
Prussian representatives have always had it their 
own way. Yet Prussia, according to the Constitution, 
has got only seventeen delegates out of fifty- two. 
When the Imperial Constitution was framed it was 
thought that the Prussian representation was far too 
small, and the fear was repeatedly expressed that the 
Prussian vote in the Bundesrat would be overruled. 
But not once has it happened that the German major- 
ity in the Bundesrat has dared to oppose any import- 
ant measure initiated by the Prussian Government. 
For all practical purposes, therefore, Prussia is the 
suzerain power. The German principalities and 
kingdoms are reduced to political tutelage and 
subjection. 

Such a complete control of one nation which is in a 
minority over other nations which form the large 
majority is surely a paradox in our democratic age 
and under a regime which claims to be one of tmiversal 
suffrage. It becomes doubly paradoxical if we con- 
sider that the subject nations are entirely different 
from and vastly superior to the controlling power. 
And it is trebly paradoxical if we consider that the 
control is accepted, if not without grumbling, at least 
without strong protest, and certainly without actual 
rebellion. 



Prussia and Germany 55 

We need not dwell here on the geographical, 
ethnographical, and religious differences between 
Prussians and Germans, between North and South. It 
has to be remembered, of course, that technically the 
kingdom of Prussia to-day includes many provinces 
like the Rhine Province, which have nothing Prussian 
in character, and that we are using the word Prussian 
in its historical meaning. Historic Prussia is a barren 
and monotonous desert. On the other hand, Germany 
has the rich diversity of smiling vineyards and roman- 
tic scenery, is traversed by magnificent rivers, is the 
seat of prosperous industries. Germany can boast of 
a comparatively pure Teutonic stock; Prussia is a 
mongrel mixture of many races, and in its compo- 
sition is certainly more Slavonic than Teutonic. The 
"colonization" of Prussia went on till the end of 
the eighteenth century, and its completion was one 
of the many achievements of Frederick the Great. 
Western and Southern Germany is largely Catholic; 
Prussia is almost entirely Lutheran. 

But it is not merely the external and physical 
or racial, or even religious, differences between 
North and South, between East and West, which 
must arrest our attention. It is more relevant to 
the purpose of our argument to emphasize the effect 
of those differences on the national character, and 
to point out the absolute opposition between the 
Prussian temperament and the German tempera- 
ment, the striking incompatibility of disposition 
between Berlin and Munich, between Konigsberg 
and Cologne. 

The Southern and Western German is still to-day, 
as he was in the days of Madame de Stael, artistic and 
poetic, brilliant and imaginative: a lover of song and 



56 The Anglo-German Problem 

music. The Prussian remains as he has always been, 
inartistic and dull and unromantic. Prussia has not 
produced one of the great composers who are the pride 
of the German race; and Berlin, with all its wealth 
and its two million inhabitants, strikes the foreigner as 
one of the most commonplace capitals of the civilized 
world. The Southern and Western German is gay and 
genial, courteous and expansive; the Prussian is sullen, 
reserved, and aggressive. The Southern and Western 
German is sentimental and generous; the Prussian is 
sour and dour, and believes only in hard fact. The 
Southern and Western German is an idealist; the 
Prussian is a realist and a materialist, a stern ration- 
alist, who always keeps his eye on the main chance. 
The Southern and Western German is independent 
almost to the verge of anarchism; he has a strong 
individuality; his patriotism is municipal and paroch- 
ial ; he is attached to his little city, to its peculiarities 
and local customs: the Prussian is imitative, docile, 
and disciplined; his patriotism is not the sentimental 
love of the native city, but the abstract loyalty to the 
State. The Southern and Western German is proud 
of his romantic history, of his ancient culture; the 
Prussian has no culture to be proud of — politically -he 
is an upstart. Prussia is a settlement, an army, and 
a bureaucracy rather than a nation; but the Prussian 
is unswervingly loyal to the commander of that army, 
submissive to the chief of that bureaucracy. 

How shall we explain this startling paradox? How 
is it, and why is it, that the artistic and exuberant, 
genial and sentimental German submits to the hard 
rule of the commonplace, uninteresting, and dour 
Prussian ? 

If you ask ninety-nine out of a hundred Germans 



Prussia and Germany 57 

they will not give you a reply. They know too little 
of and care too little about politics to be even aware of 
the fact. They are satisfied with appearances. They 
do not see the King of Prussia behind the German 
Kaiser. They are hypnotized by the glittering helmet 
of the War Lord. 

But if you succeed in discovering one in a hundred 
who understands the relation between Germany and 
Prussia, and who has thought out the political problem 
he will probably give you something like the following 
reply : 

**I know that there is no love lost between the 
Germans and the Prussians. I know that in culture 
and native ability we are as superior to the Prussians 
as our vine-clad hills are superior in beauty to the 
sandy wastes of Pomerania. And I know that in 
politics we play a subordinate part, although we are 
superior. But I also realize that it is necessary for us 
to submit. And it is necessary for us to submit, 
precisely because of our virtues. For those virtues of 
ours are unpractical. And it is necessary for the 
Prussians to rule, precisely because of their short- 
comings. For those shortcomings are practical. 
The pure gold of the German temper could never be 
made into hard coin nor used to advantage. It could 
be made to produce splendid works of art, gems and 
diadems and ornaments, but for practical purposes, 
in order to forge the weapons of the Nibelungen, the 
alloy of the baser metal was indispensable. It re- 
quired the mixture of Prussian sand and Prussian 
iron to weld us into a nation, to raise us to an empire. 
It is because we Germans are artists and dreamers and 
individualists that we could never manage our own 
affairs, that we have always been 'non-political 



58 The Anglo-German Problem 

animals.' ^ > On the contrary, it is because the Prussian 
has no brilliance, no romance, no personality, that he 
makes a splendid soldier and a model bureaucrat. 
Two things above all were required to make Germany 
into a powerful state — a strong army and a well 
ordered administration. Prussia has given us both. 

''And let us not forget that Germany more than 
any other Power required such a strong army and 
such a strong administration, not only owing to the 
shortcomings of her national character, but owing to 
the weakness and danger of her geographical position, 
Germany is open on every frontier. She has ever been 
harassed by dangerous enemies. Only a generation 
ago she was threatened on every side. On the north 
she had to face the rulers of the sea, who hampered 
her commercial expansion ; on the west she had to face 
the restless Gaul; on the south she was confronted 
with the clerical and Jesuitical empire of the Habs- 
burg; on the east with the empire of the Romanoffs. 
From all those enemies Prussia has ultimately saved 
us. The Hohenzollern dynasty has proved a match 
for them all. 

"The whole annals of Germany and Prussia are a 
striking proof of the political weakness of the German 
and of the strength of the Prussian character. Again 
and again Germany has witnessed magnificent out- 
bursts of national prosperity. She has seen the might 
of the Hohenstauf en ; she has seen the wealth of the 
Hansa towns. Again and again she has witnessed 
the spontaneous generation and blossoming of civic 

^ This is again and again admitted even by the most patriotic 
German writers. (See General von Bernhardi's last book, The 
Coming V/ar: "Wir sind ein unpolitisches Volk" — "We are a 
non-political people.") 



Prussia and Germany 59 

prosperity ; she has seen the glory and pride of Nurem- 
berg and Heidelberg, of Cologne and Frankfurt, the 
art of Diirer and Holbein. But again and again 
German culture has been nipped in the bud. It has 
been destroyed by civil war and religious war, by 
internal anarchy and foreign invasion. The Thirty 
Years' War devasted every province of the German 
Empire, and such was the misery and anarchy that in 
many parts the people had reverted to savagery and 
cannibalism.^ And hardly had the country recovered 
from the horrors of the wars of religion, when repeated 
French invasions laid waste the rich provinces of the 
Rhine and Palatinate. So completely did German 
rulers of the eighteenth century betray their duty to 
the people that some princes degraded themselves to 
the point of selling their soldiers to the Hanoverian 
kings in order to fight the battles of England in 
America. 

"Whilst the German princes were thus squandering 
the treasure and life-blood of their subjects, there was 
growing up in the North a little State which was 
destined, from the most unpromising beginnings, for 
the most glorious future. It is true that the little 
Prussian State was wretchedly poor; for that very 
reason the Prussian rulers had to practise strict 
economy and unrelenting industry. It is true the 
country was always insecure and constantly threat- 
ened by powerful neighbours ; for that very reason the 
people had to submit to a rigid discipline and a strong 
military organization. It is true the country was 
depopulated; for that very reason the rulers had to 
attract foreign settlers by a just, wise, and tolerant 
government." 

^ See Arvede Barine's Madame: Mere du Regent. 



6o The Anglo-German Problem 

A patriotic German might illustrate in the following 
simple parable the complex and strange relations 
between Germany and Prussia : 

"The German people a century ago might be 
compared to the heirs and owners of an ancient estate. 
The estate was rich and of romantic beauty. The 
heirs were clever, adventurous, and universally popu- 
lar. But although devoted to each other, they could 
not get on together. Their personality was too strong, 
and they were always quarrelling. Nor could they 
turn to advantage their vast resources, and the natural 
wealth of the estate only served to attract outside 
marauders. They were so extravagant and so un- 
practical that they would lay out beautiful parks and 
build magnificent mansions whilst neglecting to drain 
the land and to repair the fences. They would spend 
lavishly on luxuries, but they would grudge food to the 
cattle and manure to the fields. Thus, with all their 
splendid possessions, the German heirs were always on 
the verge of bankruptcy. 

"To extricate themselves, they decided to accept, 
the services of a factor and manager. The factor was 
the Prussian Junker. He was an alien. For he could 
hardly be called a German. In blood he was more 
Slav than Teutonic. He was unrefined, unsympathetic, 
and overbearing. But as a manager he was splendid. 
He bought up outlying parts to round off the estate. 
He paid more attention to the necessaries than to the 
luxuries and the amenities of life. He was more 
careful to surround himself with a strong police force 
than with poets and minstrels. But he was able to 
keep out the marauders and the poachers. He was 
able to protect the property against the stronger 
neighbours and to bully the weaker neighbours into 



Prussia and Germany 6i 

surrendering desirable additions to the estate. In a 
short time the heirs, formerly universally popular, 
were cordially hated in the land. But their rents had 
increased by leaps and bounds, and the German 
estate had been rounded off and made into one solid 
and compact whole." 

Such, German writers would tell us, is the parable 
of Germany and Prussia. The Germans are the 
gifted, generous, and spendthrift heirs to an illustrious 
domain. Prussia is the alien, upstart, unpopular, 
unsympathetic, bullying factor and manager. But to 
this bullying factor Germany owes the consolidation 
and prosperity of the national estate. 

The foregoing parable, no doubt, may express some 
aspects of the relationship between Germany and 
Prussia, but as an explanation of German history it is 
an absurd parody, and in accepting it the German 
people are the victims of a perverse humility which 
would be inconceivable if we did not know that a 
school of historians in the service of Prussia have 
systematically accredited those views for many gen- 
erations. Neither are the German people the incap- 
able and spendthrift heirs reduced by need to political 
impotence, nor has the Prussian factor been content 
with being the useful though unpleasant manager of 
the German estate. The factor has become the over- 
bearing master, and is bent on dispossessing the Ger- 
man heirs of their legitimate rights, and on reducing 
them to political subjection. 

The parable contains only one fundamental truth. 
The Reformation had divided the German nation 
into two irreconcilable camps. Even after the relig- 
ious passion had subsided, the obstacles in the way of 
German unity remained. German unity could not be 



62 The Anglo-German Problem 

restored by Clerical and Ultramontane Austria. It 
could not be restored by Bavaria, which was politically 
too feeble and under the influence of France. A third 
German power had to arise, Protestant enough to 
impose itself on the Lutheran population, yet toler- 
ant enough to render any religious wars for ever 
impossible. 

The German people are slandering themselves when 
they lay themselves prostrate before the sword and 
the peaked helmet of the Hohenzollern monarchy. 
They are not predestined for all time to come to be 
the utterly incapable politicians which they profess to 
be. They are not an essentially "unpolitical" race 
doomed to anarchy, and the Prussians are not the im- 
perial race predestined to supremacy. Indeed, in 
political capacity the Southern Germans are far more 
gifted than the Prussians. Their traditions of munici- 
pal government are as superior to the bureaucratic 
traditions of Prussia as the genius of liberty is superior 
to the genius of despotism. No country can boast of a 
more glorious civic history than the free German 
cities of the South and of the East. It is true that in 
the chaos of the religious wars those free institutions 
disappeared with almost every other vestige of Ger- 
man culture; it is true that German Protestantism, by 
surrendering to the State both the temporal and 
spiritual power, proved favourable to despotism. But 
the German people would have learnt again their 
political lesson, and they would have learnt it in the 
only school where the art of government can be learnt 
— the hard and stern school of experience; and cer- 
tainly they will not learn the art of self-government 
from their Prussian masters. So far from training 
them in the art and science of politics, the Prussian 



Prussia and Germany 63 

despot has been the worst conceivable teacher they 
could have chosen; and if his rule were to be per- 
petuated for many generations he would destroy the 
splendid municipal traditions inherited from the 
Middle Ages. 

The political dissensions and disasters of Germany 
are constantly given as a convincing proof of the 
political incapacity of the German people. But 
certainly the German people were not responsible for 
those dissensions and disasters. The wars of religion 
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the 
direct result of the Reformation, and the wars of the 
Revolution and the Empire were the direct result of a 
general political upheaval of Europe. And if Napo- 
leon did invade Germany, Prussia had forestalled 
France, and in 1793 had declared an unwarranted war 
against the French Republic. In the nineteenth 
century the political dissensions in Germany were the 
consequence of the rivalry of Austria and Prussia, 
both of whom aspired to the control of the German 
Federation. It is absurd to see in those inevitable 
divisions a proof of any inherent political incapacity 
of the people. And even if such an incapacity did 
exist Prussian despotism would not have been the 
remedy. 

And just as it is absurd to make the German people 
responsible for their political weakness, which has 
been the result of geographical conditions and histori- 
cal conjunctures, it is impossible to give to Prussia the 
credit of having put an end to German anarchy, and of 
having achieved German unity. That unity was in- 
evitable, because the German people wanted unity, 
and because all the forces of the times were in favour 
of unity. The most difficult task in the unification of 



64 The Anglo-German Problem 

Germany, the ZoUverein, the customs union, was an 
accomplished fact long before 1 848 for the greater part 
of the German Confederation. Prussian historians 
have distorted German history, and have thrown into 
the shade the heroic achievements of the past. The 
magnificent outburst of 1848 is passed over by official 
annalists, and is nearly forgotten. But the fact re- 
mains that, so far from hastening on German unity, 
the ambition of Prussia postponed it. Sixty years ago 
the parliament of Frankfurt decreed the political 
unity of the country. So strong was the national 
desire, so unanimous the popular feeling, so clearly did 
the people understand that the only obstacle came 
from Austria and Prussia, that the German democracy 
offered the Imperial Crown to an autocrat known for 
his feudal principles. But the autocrat, Frederick 
William the Fourth, refused to hold his title from the 
people. He realized that an empire established on a 
democratic foundation would put an end for ever to 
the irresponsible despotism of the Prussian king. But 
for this criminal selfishness of Frederick William, 
which stands in such a glaring contrast with the 
patriotic self-surrender of the people, and but for the 
Prussian betrayal of the interests of the confederation, 
German unity would have been achieved peacefully 
so far back as 1848. No doubt it would not have been 
achieved by blood and iron. But it still remains to be 
proved that blood and iron and the teeth of the dragon 
are the necessary ingredient or cement of a modern 
nationality. And no doubt German unity would not 
have been bought at the cost of the confiscation of 
popular liberty. But it remains still to be proved that 
the confiscation of popular liberty is the indispensable 
preliminary to the making of a great people. 



Prussia and Germany 65 

And, therefore, not only are we convinced that 
German unity would have come sooner without the 
intervention of Prussia, but it would have been closer, 
more real, and more permanent. As the contradic- 
tions which we analysed in a previous chapter, as the 
many parties in the Reichstag abundantly prove, 
German unity is far from being an accomplished fact. 
Germany remains a geographical expression. After 
all, even to the most superficial observer, it must be 
apparent to-day that iron and blood have not welded 
Germany together. Neither Schleswig-Holstein nor 
Alsace-LoiTaine, nor Hanover nor Poland, are integral 
parts of the empire. Even the particularism of the 
South has not wholly disappeared. The rifts are 
widening every day in the Imperial structure. Mili- 
tary despotism may artificially keep together the 
different parts and conceal the process of disintegra- 
tion; but that military despotism cannot last for ever 
in a great industrial commonwealth honeycombed with 
Socialism. When the German people awaken from 
their political slumber we shall realize how little 
Prussia has done for German unity. 

For what is true of the political unity applies even 
more strongly to the moral and spiritual unity of 
Germany. The Germans are apt to rail at the political 
anarchy which prevails in France, at the civil dis- 
tractions of the Dreyfus affair. It is true that a 
Dreyfus affair would have been impossible in Germany 
for the simple reason that the German Jews still 
suffer from civil disabilities, and are still excluded 
from the army and from the responsible posts of the 
civil service, and mainly because in Germany the 
sense of political justice is not so acutely developed 
that an injustice done to a Jew would cause a civil war. 
5 



66 The Anglo-German Problem 

And it is equally true that German dissensions are not 
forced on the superficial observer. In France any 
political divisions are revealed urbi et orbi. In Ger- 
many they are not proclaimed on the housetops. But 
as a matter of fact France is a united family compared 
to Germany. And a Frenchman to-day has ceased to 
inquire whether Calvin and Robespierre came from 
the North, and whether Mirabeau and Thiers came 
from the South, whether Montesquieu was a Gascon, 
and Corneille a Norman, and Bossuet a Burgundian. 
Compared to the Reichstag, the French Palais Bour- 
bon is a harmonious assembly. There is no cleavage 
in France so profound as the cleavage between the 
German CathoHc South and the Protestant North, 
between the industrial and Socialistic West and 
South-West and the reactionary and agrarian East 
and North-East . The reactionary Junkers east of the 
Elbe — or the Ost-Elbier, as they are nicknamed — 
the Social Democrats, the Clericals of the Centre, and 
the Protestant Freethinkers are arrayed in irreconcil- 
able armies. Forty years ago the opposition between 
Catholics and Protestants culminated in the Kultur- 
kampf. Catholicism emerged victorious, and peace 
was proclaimed. But that peace is only a truce. 
Equally precarious is the modus vivendi between the 
industrial army and the agrarian army; and the day 
cannot be far off when religious war and social war 
will shake united Germany to its foundations, for 
Protestant and freethinking Germany will not for 
ever submit to being ruled by Westphalian and 
Bavarian priests. 

Not only have historians enormously exaggerated 
the services of Prussia to German unity, but even if 
those services had been as real and as far-reaching as 



Prussia and Germany 67 

they are said to be, the payment would have been 
extravagantly high. We might grant the vital 
necessity of a strong police, a strong army, and a 
strong administration; and we might also grant that 
the kings of Prussia were, by training and tradition, 
best qualified to organize such a police, such an army, 
and such a bureaucracy. But in our complex indus- 
trial civilization, which can ultimately thrive only 
through freedom, initiative, and enterprise, an army 
and a bureaucracy must remain serviceable tools. If 
restricted to its proper function an army is the most 
useful of servants; otherwise it becomes the most 
dangerous of tyrants. Any nation makes a bad 
bargain which surrenders its political rights in ex- 
change for a temporary and precarious protection. 

To come back to our former parable, it may have 
been necessary for the German heirs to engage the 
services of the Prussian factor, and to submit to his 
overbearing manners. But it was an evil day when 
they gave up to the Hohenzollern the control of the 
German estate. Too often has it happened in private 
life that for lack of vigilance on the part of the legiti- 
mate owners the factor has become the master, and 
turned out those whose interests he was to protect. 
This is exactly what has happened in contemporary 
Germany. The Prussian factor has become a mar- 
tinet and a tyrant. Fortunately, what to a private 
individual would be irreparable ruin need only be a 
temporary evil in a nation. The German people 
are beginning to realize that they have sold their 
political birthright for a mess of Prussian pottage. 
The Prussian hypnotism has lasted too long, and 
the people are awakening from their hypnotic 
trance. Let them become more fully conscious of 



68 The Anglo-German Problem 

their present serfdom, and they will claim and regain 
those ancient liberties which the Prussian Kaisertum 
and the Prussian Junkertum have taken away from 
them. 



REACTION IN GERMANY 

We shall see in a succeeding chapter whether 
German Socialism is a force working for peace. But 
assuming for the moment that it is, two questions 
at once force themselves upon us: Has German 
Socialism any decisive influence on the government of 
the country ? And have the German people any voice 
in settling the fateful issues of peace and war? This 
again brings us to the central problem of German 
politics: the struggle between political liberty and 
reaction. 

Reaction is supreme in every department of German 
life. Prussian despotism may be enlightened despot- 
ism, and it may be beneficent. We do not wish to 
minimize whatever it may have done for the good of 
the people. Least of all do we wish to minimize its 
achievements in social legislation, through its insur- 
ance laws, and old-age pensions. But neither ought 
we to overrate its merits. In its social policy the 
Imperial Government was by no means inspired by 
disinterested motives, any more than Bismarck was 
actuated by a love of democracy when he granted 
universal suffrage, or Beaconsfield when he extended 
the franchise in 1867. The main object which the 
German statesmen pursued in their social legislation 
was to conciliate the masses, to disarm the Socialists, 
and to extend their own power. Nor must we forget 

69 



70 The Anglo-German Problem 

that any social legislation involving compulsory 
measures and government supervision and legislation 
is much easier to carry out in a centralized and dis- 
ciplined State like Germany, which is also an employer 
of labour on a huge scale. 

But we are not discussing here the relative merits 
of despotism and freedom. We are not discussing 
whether freedom with all its risks is preferable to 
despotism with all its benefits. We are trying to 
define the nature of Prussian despotism. And our 
contention is that, whether enlightened or not, whether 
benevolent or not, it is certainly more despotic than 
in any other country; and it is more despotic, because 
more systematic, more rigid, more absolute. That 
rigid despotism has prevailed ever since 1870. For a 
few years Bismarck tried to govern with the National 
Liberals, but they were compelled to sink their 
Liberalism and only to remember their Nationalism. 
And when they became restive, Bismarck discarded 
them. Many years after Bismarck, Prince von Biilow 
for a brief space governed with the Radicals, but the 
Centre proved too strong for his coalition of Liberals 
and Conservatives, and the German Government 
once more was at the mercy of the ** Black-blue hloc'* 
the alliance of Catholic and Protestant reactionaries. 

Not only the Government, but the Constitution of 
the empire itself is reactionary. At first sight it 
seems to rest on a democratic basis, the basis of 
universal suffrage. But we know from Bismarck's 
Memoirs that universal suffrage was only an oppor- 
tunist measure to compel recalcitrant German princi- 
palities to join the Imperial federation. It was not an 
essential part of the Constitution. It was not an end 
in itself, but a means to an end. If the means proved 



Reaction in Germany 71 

troublesome, it could be revoked, the concession 
could be withdrawn. But Bismarck was not afraid. 
He had taken every precaution to prevent universal 
suffrage from being effective. He had learned from 
Louis Napoleon this most useful lesson, that universal 
suffrage can be made to be perfectly harmless, that it 
does in no wise commit the monarchy to a liberal 
policy, and that it may be manipulated at will, if the 
Government only shows sufficient diplomacy. Bis- 
marck therefore knew what he was doing when he 
granted to the German Democrats the concession of 
manhood suffrage. And his anticipations have been 
fully realized; manhood suffrage, even as in Belgium 
to-day, even as in the France of Napoleon the Third, 
has not proved an obstacle to absolutism; rather has 
it proved an obstacle to parliamentary government. 

We are apt to forget that, strictly speaking, a par- 
liamentary government does not exist in Germany, 
although we constantly speak of a "German Parlia- 
ment." According to the Constitution, the Chancel- 
lor is not responsible to Parliament, he is only 
responsible to the Emperor. There is no Cabinet or 
delegation of the majority of the Reichstag. There is 
no party system. There are only party squabbles. 
I do not know whether Mr. Belloc would approve 
of the German Constitution, but it certainly enables 
the Government to soar high above all the parties in 
the Reichstag. German Liberals may be morally justi- 
fied in their struggle against political reaction, but 
technically the Government are acting within their 
constitutional right. And when, therefore, the Reich- 
stag attempts to control the executive, it is rather the 
Reichstag which is unconstitutional. On the other 
hand, when the Emperor asserts his divine right, it is 



72 The Anglo-German Problem 

he who is true to the spirit of the Constitution; he is 
only giving a religious interpretation and colour to a 
political prerogative which he undoubtedly possesses. 
And not only is there no parliamentary government, 
but there is not even a desire, except with a small 
fraction of Radicals, to possess such a government. 
Prussian publicists again and again tell us that Ger- 
many does not want to copy English institutions. 
The old German monarchic institutions are good 
enough for Germany. Read the treatise of Treitschke, 
the great historian and political philosopher of modern 
Prussia. He systematically attempts to belittle every 
achievement of the parliamentary system; and every 
prominent writer follows in his footsteps. Prussia has 
not produced a Guizot, a Tocqueville, a Stuart Mill, or 
a Bryce. Her thinkers are all imbued with the tra- 
ditions of enlightened despotism. Even the great 
Mommsen cannot be adduced as an exception. He 
makes us forget his Liberalism, and only remember 
his Csesarism. 

The powers of the Reichstag are very limited. It is 
mainly a machine for voting supplies, but even that 
financial control is more nominal than real. For under 
the Constitution the Assembly must needs make 
provision for the army and navy, which are outside 
and above party politics. And having previously 
fixed the contingent of the Imperial forces, the army 
and navy estimates must needs follow. In the present 
tension of international politics, a reduction is out of 
the question. Theoretically, the Reichstag can indeed 
oppose an increase, but practically the increase is 
almost automatic. The Reichstag could only postpone 
it, and in so doing would have to face unpopularity. 
Every party vies with its rivals in sacrificing their 



Reaction in Germany 73 

principles on the altar of patriotism. Whereas the 
Catholic Party in Belgium has for twenty-eight 
years refused the means of national defence, and has 
made the Belgian army into a byword on the plea 
that barrack life is dangerous to the religious faith of 
the peasant, the German Catholics have voted with 
exemplary docility every increase of the army and 
navy. Only once did they dare to propose a small 
reduction in the estimates for the expenditure on the 
war against the Herreros. But the indignation they 
raised by their independent attitude, and the doubt- 
ful elections of 1907, taught them a practical lesson in 
patriotic submission which they are not likely soon to 
forget. 

The Reichstag, therefore, is largely a debating club, 
and its debates are as irresponsible as those of students 
in a university union, because no speech, however 
eloquent, carries with it any of the responsibilities of 
government. The Opposition in England is careful of 
the language it uses, and more careful of the promises 
it makes, because it knows that it may be called upon 
to fulfil its promises and to carry out the policy it 
advocates. In Germany there is no such possibility. 
The Opposition is only platonic. It is doomed to 
impotence. 

But even if the Reichstag had the constitutional 
power, it could not make use of it, because it is hope- 
lessly divided. The old curse of Protestant sectarian- 
ism and schism continues to cling to German politics — 
the incapacity to unite. There are many grotips, and 
of these at least five are forces to be counted with : the 
Progressive Radicals, the National Liberals, the 
Conservative Protestants, the Social Democrats, and, 
above all. the Catholic Centre. All those parties 



74 The Anglo-German Problem 

fight for their own ends, and recent debates on financial 
reform have proved how sordidly selfish those ends 
are. The ruling classes refuse to contribute their 
share to the Imperial budget, and that budget is much 
less democratic than the English budget, where the 
income tax and the death duties fall mainly on the 
well-to-do classes. 

As no party is strong enough to constitute a major- 
ity, they have to enter into combination with other 
parties, and those combinations are generally more or 
less temporary, and always conditional. For circum- 
stances are constantly changing, and the parties 
themselves are always shifting their ground. It is 
difficult for an outside observer to thread his way 
through the quicksands of Reichstag politics. The 
French Government has often been accused of being 
unstable, but German politics are far more shifty and 
unstable, more erratic and bewildering, than the 
politics of Republican France. 

But political instability is not the most serious con- 
sequence of this extreme division of parties. There 
is the far more serious consequence of political im- 
morality, the absence of all principle, or the sub- 
ordination of principle to party purposes. For parties, 
in order to secure a majority, have often to ally 
themselves with other parties which may have 
nothing in common with them, which may, indeed, 
have entirely opposite ideas. We constantly witness 
in the German Reichstag the most monstrous alliances. 
Extreme Protestants will ally themselves with atheistic 
Socialists, Radicals will ally themselves with Con- 
servatives. There is no conceivable combination in 
the complex chemistry of modern politics which can- 
not be studied in the history of the German Reichstag. 



Reaction in Germany 75 

Under such conditions politics become an ignoble 
game of haggling, of bargaining and bartering. The 
very word political "principle" loses its meaning. 
Cynicism and indifferentism take its place. Oppor- 
tunism reigns supreme. "Trimming" is reduced to 
a fine art. No party is loyal to its flag. Even the 
Catholics betray their trust and allow their Polish 
brethren to be persecuted. Political materialism, 
under the disguise of the Realpolitik, is supreme in the 
empire.^ 

It is the baneful consequences resulting from the 
extreme division of parties, which in recent years have 
converted many German politicians to the English 
"two-party" system, at the very moment when in 
England the faith in the party system is beginning to 
be shaken. 

A parliament [says an eminent parliamentarian, Dr. 
Naumann], which is composed only of two great parties, has 
quite naturally the Government in its hands, for the leading 
minister must have the majority behind him, if he does not want 
to-morrow to be a man with whom everything goes amiss, and 
who, therefore, is compelled to retire. Thereby, no doubt, the 
freedom of the elector is decreased, but the power of the elected 
is increased. Under the two-party system the elector has only 
the right to decide between two government groups. He goes 
to the group which promises him most or which accomplishes 
most. In promises the Opposition is naturally stronger than the 
government majority, but when its turn comes to win, it is 
bound to fulfil its promises. There lies the limit of its agitation 
against its opponents. Parties which can come into power within 
an appreciable time must carry on a more moderate and, there- 

^ Nor is German politics by any means free from corruption. I 
am not alluding to the court scandals revealed by the Moltke- 
Harden trial, but to the far more serious scandals and revelations 
of malversation and peculation in the navy. Many German high 
officials obviously thrive on the expansion of the navy. 



76 The Anglo-German Problem 

fore, a more real agitation than parties which are necessarily 
excluded from power. If a Social Democrat could once be a 
Cabinet minister with us, what a training and discipline this 
would be to him and his followers! But the multiplicity of 
parties makes responsibility impossible. Responsible with us 
only is the Government. Parties talk, promise, desire, formulate, 
declaim, and debate. 

If the dissensions and divisions amongst German 
citizeil^ are the cause of the multiplicity of parties, it 
is the multiplicity of parties which causes their weak- 
ness, and it is the weakness of parties which again 
accounts for the strength of the Government. The 
art of government in Germany for the last twenty-five 
years has consisted largely in playing off one party 
against another. There was a time when the most 
efficient way of dealing with the Reichstag was to 
bully it. Bismarck was little inclined to conciliate or 
to coax a refractory assembly, but Hohenlohe, Biilow, 
and von Bethmann-Hollweg have discovered that the 
methods of the diplomat are more efficient than those 
of the soldier, that statecraft is safer and quicker than 
violence. The best definition of a German Chancellor 
to-day is that of a political rope-dancer, or to use a 
more respectful metaphor, of a political chess-player. 
In this game Biilow has been a wonderful virtuoso. 
He has in turn utilized the Catholics and the Con- 
servatives and the Radicals to achieve his purpose, 
using them to-day and discarding them to-morrow. 
It is true that even the most clever virtuoso must meet 
with temporary difficulties and must make a false 
move, but when the Chancellor makes a mistake it is 
easily retrieved. As long as he has the Kaiser behind 
him, the people and their elected representatives do 
not matter. He can always dismiss a recalcitrant 



Reaction in Germany ^^ 

Chamber. He need not do it as brutally as the irre- 
pressible Herr von Oldenburg advised, and send a few 
Horse Guards to close the proceedings. He need only 
choose his own time and dissolve the Reichstag. Or, 
when he is driven into a corner, the Chancellor has 
only to raise some loud-sounding battle-cry. Of such 
battle-cries there is in Germany an inexhaustible 
supply. It may be difficult to unite the Germans on 
some vital question of constructive policy, b^t you 
can always create a movement and raise a cry against 
somebody. It may be an agitation against Clerical- 
ism. It may be the cry, ''Los von Rom.'' It may be 
an agitation against Socialism. It may be the cry, 
** Property is imperilled. " Most efficient of all, it may 
be an agitation against England or France. It may 
be the war-cry, "The Vaterland is in danger! " And 
whilst Socialists, Catholics, and National Liberals 
are fighting it out, the Chancellor secures his majority 
for the greater glory of the King of Prussia. 

There is a mysterious and exalted body in the German 
Empire, the Bundesrat, which few foreign newspapers 
ever mention, and of which the average educated 
Englishman does not even suspect the existence. 
The Bundesrat in some respects may be compared to 
the House of Lords, but its power is not restricted to a 
right of veto. In several other respects it resembles the 
American Senate, but its attributes are far wider and 
more important. And those attributes have been 
steadily growing. To-day it is not the Reichstag 
which controls the Bundesrat — it is the Bundesrat 
which controls the Reichstag and reduces it to 
impotence. 

It will be objected that the foregoing summary 
judgment on the German Constitution does not err 



78 The Anglo-German Problem 

on the side of appreciation, and we admit that the 
Reichstag and the Bundesrat do not express and 
exhaust the whole of German public life. If, instead of 
describing those assemblies, we were to describe the 
activities of the efficient and much-maligned German 
bureaucracy and of the Civil Service, we might have a 
very different tale to tell. But, after all, we are dis- 
cussing the political life of the empire, and not its 
administrative machinery, and with regard to that 
life we do not think that our judgment is unfair. Still, 
lest we be suspected of being unduly severe, it may not 
be irrelevant to give the opinion of a prominent 
leader of the German Reichstag, Dr. Friedrich Nau- 
mann, who is both a patriot and a Liberal, and who 
for more than a generation has played a conspicuous 
part in the political struggles of his country : 



The German Empire has two political forces — the Bundesrat 
and the Reichstag, — but of those forces the one is infinitely 
stronger than the other, for the Bundesrat can dissolve the 
Reichstag, but the Reichstag cannot dissolve the Bundesrat. 
The Bundesrat can play catchball with the Reichstag, Some- 
where in their palace their delegates sit together in secret and 
throw our resolutions into the wastepaper basket. But they 
demand of us that we shall accept their proposals. If the Reichs- 
tag does not do what the Bundesrat demands, there comes a 
smash. There is an appeal to national feeling, and the sinners 
must do penance. But when the Bundesrat does not do what the 
majority of the Reichstag has resolved, then nothing happens — 
absolutely nothing! Such is the condition of affairs which we in 
Germany call, "Parliamentary Government." From this condi- 
tion the Reichstag must be saved, or it will sink even lower — as 
low r s the Roman Senate at the time of the emperors. 

Poor, honest Reichstag! I have pity on thee, although I 
myself belong to thee. Ministers are forced upon thee, and thou 
canst say nothing against it ! When on a particular day a Cabinet 
Secretary or an Imperial Chancellor falls into disfavour, the fact 



Reaction in Germany 79 

is hardly mentioned to us. The Reichstag is informed of it 
through the newspapers. That is what happened with Count 
Posadowsky. This man had his majority, not indeed for his 
programme but for his person. He enjoyed the confidence of the 
majority of the House. But that has not helped him — absolutely 
nothing ! 

Poor, honest Reichstag! what principles or measures of 
contemporary German politics really have originated from thee? 
Every essential law has emanated from the Federal Governments, 
whether those laws have been good or bad. Customs laws, in- 
surance laws, Liberal politics, increase of the navy, finance 
politics — all those measures came into being after the silent 
Chamber of the Bundesrat had taken them in hand. The Reichs- 
tag has the right of initiative just as much as the Federated 
Government, but it lies in its composition that it can do nothing 
with this right. It has not yet found the means to compel the 
Bundesrat to do anything, because it has not got any stable 
leading majority, and the people feel instinctively that the Reichs- 
tag is only a kind of supervising authority — a great ponderous 
bureau for drawing up proposals for the Government. Oh ! if the 
Reichstag could only carry through something of its own initia- 
tive. I see its members running to the State secretaries. In that 
assembly there is as much haggling as at the exchange, but each 
group is making a bargain for itself. Bismarck is still laughing in 
his grave for having combined it all so ingeniously. No achieve- 
ment of his reveals his statecraft to better advantage than his 
dispositions of the Bundesrat and the Reichstag, for those dis- 
positions are the greatest obstacle to parliamentary government 
in Germany. He granted popular rights, but he took every pre- 
caution that the popular will shall not be carried out. He created 
an indissoluble secret college and a dissoluble public parliament. 
He knew perfectly well which of the two would prove the stronger, 
and we experience every day how completely he has tied the 
democracy while seeming to favour it. 



It is then unanimously admitted that in the Im- 
perial Reichstag, as well as in the Bundesrat, reaction 
has continuously prevailed for forty years. But it 
might be said that in the Reichstag at least there has 



8o The Anglo-German Problem 

always been a strong, though impotent, opposition. 
Even this much, alas ! cannot be asserted of the Prus- 
sian Landtag. In that assembly the very shadow of 
opposition has vanished, and the fact is all the more 
important because for all the realities of ordinary 
political life the Prussian Parliament is so much more 
important than the Reichstag. 

The Prussian Landtag may justly be called the most 
mediaeval assembly of modern Europe, compared with 
which even a Russian Duma is an advanced body. 
The electoral law by which the Prussian Parliament 
is elected is probably the most scandalous law in 
existence. Its repeal has been promised again and 
again by German statesmen, and even in speeches 
from the throne. Yet it continues to reign, an insult 
to common sense. 

Under the Prussian "three-class" system voting is 
public, and the voter is therefore amenable to outside 
pressure. The voting is indirect, and therefore it is 
capable of outside manipiilation. The first electors 
elect a small body, who in turn elect the representa- 
tives. For the purpose of election the citizens are 
divided into three classes, the voting power being in 
proportion to the taxes paid, and each class having 
equal voting power. Supposing that a particular 
electoral division pays 6000 marks in taxes, the 
amount payable by one of the three classes would be 
2000 marks. If in that district there lives only one 
rich man paying that amount, he would by himself 
constitute the first class. If there are twenty people 
who each pay 100 marks in taxes, they form the 
electors of the second class. If there are two 
hundred electors paying 10 marks each in taxes 
they form the third class. Thus one elector of 



Reaction in Germany 8i 

the first class has as much electoral power as the 
twenty electors of the second class, and as much 
power as the tv/o hundred electors of the third 
class. Those figures are, of course, arbitrary, and are 
only given to make the whole system intelligible. 
But, as a matter of fact, the disproportion of those 
figures is even exceeded in the reality. In the electoral 
circle of Berhn No. III. there exists the division 99. 
In that division lives the family of Botzov, brewers 
and landowners. One Mr. Botzov forms the first 
class by himself, and another Mr. Botzov forms the 
second class by himself, and all the 571 remaining 
electors constitute the third class. The two Messrs. 
Botzov together elect twice the number of electors 
chosen by the 571 electors of the third class. 

In the last election for the Prussian Landtag, in 
1903, the following are the statistics of those qualified 
to vote: 

The first class included . . 239,000 
The second class included. . 857,000 
The third class included . . 6,600,000 

It is necessary to go back to the good old times of 
Greece and Rome to discover an electoral system so 
ingenious as the Prussian system. We involuntarily 
think of the electoral law of Servius Tullius and Tar- 
quinius Superbus. The Prussian ruling class may 
well be proud of evoking such ancient and classical 
associations ! 

When a country agrees to be ruled by such a mon- 
strous system it is not to be wondered at that the 
influence of reaction should make itself felt in every 

6 



82 The Anglo-German Problem 

department of public life. The reality of local self- 
government in Prussia only exists in the big munici- 
palities. The ordinary local government authorities, 
who possess all the substance of political power — the 
Governor, or Oh er president, the Landrat, and the 
police — are the direct representatives of the Central 
Government, and through them the Prussian Govern- 
ment make their power felt in every German village. 
Nor must we forget that the higher administrative 
authorities almost exclusively belong to the nobility, 
and they defend the interests of their caste all the 
more thoroughly because they are invested with 
powers which far exceed the powers of any local 
government authorities in the United Kingdom. 

The same centralization reigns in the Civil Service 
and in the judicature. In England the judiciary is 
practically independent of and raised above party. 
In Germany the appointment of a judge depends, as in 
Great Britain, on his politics; but he is not, as in Great 
Britain, taken from amongst those who have already 
achieved distinction at the Bar. He is not chosen 
because he is an able man or a brilliant man. Bril- 
liancy would rather go against him. He must above 
all be a "safe" man, and his promotion depends on his 
subservience to the powers that be. Indeed the judi- 
ciary is for all practical purposes a branch of the Civil 
Service, and is not essentially different from any other 
branch. 

It has often happened in other countries when the 
expression of free opinions has become dangerous 
or difficult that independent political thought has 
taken refuge in the universities. Even in Russia the 
universities have been a stronghold of Liberalism. 
In the Germany of the first half of the nineteenth 



Reaction in Germany 83 

century many a university professor suffered in the 
cause of political liberty. In the Germany of to-day 
the universities are becoming the main support of 
reaction. Professors, although they are nominated by 
the faculties, are appointed by the Government; and 
here again the Government only appoints "safe" men. 
A scholar who has incurred the displeasure of the 
political authorities must be content to remain a 
Privat-Dozent all his life. The much-vaunted inde- 
pendence of the German professor is a thing of the past. 
They may be independent scientifically ; they are not 
independent politically. It is not that scholars have 
not the abstract right to speak out, or that they would 
be dismissed once they have been appointed ; rather is 
it that they would not be appointed or promoted. A 
young scholar with Radical leanings knows that he 
will not be called to Berlin. 

The German universities still lead political thought ; 
they still wield political influence, and their influence 
may be even greater to-day than it ever was, but that 
influence is enlisted almost exclusively on the side of 
reaction. 

And what is true of the universities is true of 
the churches. Of the Roman Catholic Church it is 
hardly necessary to speak. Non ragionar di lor, ma 
guarda e passa. The history of German Catholicism 
proves once more that the Church is never more 
admirable than when she is persecuted. During the 
Kulturkampf the Catholics stood for political liberty, 
whereas the so-called National Liberals stood for 
State centralization and political despotism. To-day, 
from being persecuted, the Catholic Church has 
become a persecuting church. She has entered into 
an unholy compact with the Prussian Government. 



84 The Anglo-German Problem 

She has ceased to be religious, and has become Clerical. 
She has ceased to be universal. She has become 
narrowly Nationalist. She might have played a 
glorious part in the new empire. Instead she has 
resisted every attempt at financial reform. She might 
have resisted the oppressive policy against the Poles. 
Instead she has connived at oppression. She might 
have opposed the orgies of militarism. Instead she has 
voted every increase in the army and navy. She has 
bartered her dignity and spiritual independence to 
secure confessional privileges, and to get her share in 
the spoils of office. 

The Protestant churches have not had the same 
power for evil, yet they have fallen even lower than 
the Catholic Church. They have lost even more 
completely every vestige of independence. German 
university theologians may be advanced in higher 
criticism, but they are opportunists in practical 
politics. They are very daring when they examine the 
divine right of Christ, but they are very timid when 
they examine the divine right of the king and emperor. 
Protestantism produced one or two prominent progres- 
sive leaders ; but they have had to leave their churches. 
Dr. Naumann has become a layman; Stocker, when 
he espoused the cause of the people, was excommuni- 
cated, and the Kaiser hurled one of his most violent 
speeches against his once favourite Court chaplain. 

That speech of the Kaiser illustrates the paradoxical 
poHtical situation of the Lutheran churches in Ger- 
many. It has come to this, that in a Protestant 
country Protestant pastors are not allowed to dis- 
charge their duties as citizens, whereas the Govern- 
ment apparently see no objection to having the 
Catholic priests controlling the politics of the Reichs- 



Reaction in Germany 85 

tag. The Catholic priest enjoys a right which is de- 
nied to the Protestant clergy, and they enjoy the right 
for no other reason except that they have the might. 

Both the universities and the churches having thus 
betrayed their spiritual mission, can it be said that the 
Press has acted as a check? 

Even in countries where there exists no parliamen- 
tary government, the Press has often proved a power- 
ful barrier against absolutism. Such was the function 
of the Press in Russia under Nicholas the First, and in 
France under Napoleon the Third. In Germany that 
check is sadly wanting. There are excellent German 
papers, like the Kolnische Zeitung, the Kolnische 
Volkszeitung, and the Frankfurter Zeitung, which for 
intrinsic value are equal to any English paper. But 
those papers have little power, and they do not repre- 
sent a large body of public opinion. Indeed, public 
opinion in Germany is a myth, for it is not organized 
and it is inarticulate. 

German papers are broadly divided into two 
categories — the "business Press" and the "political 
Press." But that distinction is more apparent than 
real. Both kinds of newspapers are under the in- 
fluence of the Government, the only difference being 
that in the one case the influence is direct, in the other 
case it is indirect. The Government has its favourite 
inspired channels, its own "reptile" journals, and its 
Press Bureau. In the provinces the local papers 
depend on the support of the authorities, as they 
cannot live without public advertisements. Even in 
the capital and in the chief provincial centres the 
newspapers cannot shake off official tyranny, because 
the Government has the monopoly or indirect 
control of the news agencies. 



86 The Anglo-German Problem 

But the Government alone cannot be held entirely 
responsible for the present condition of the Press. We 
must blame the political apathy of the people, and 
the political dissensions of the parties. We must not 
forget that there would be no room for any paper 
which was mainly political, and was run in the interest 
of one particular section. Parties are too much 
divided, and interest in politics is too feeble to provide 
adequate financial support to any important political 
paper. 

Catholic papers, like the Kolnische Volkszeitung, 
less famous but politically much more influential than 
the Kolnische Zeitung, suffer probably less than others 
from government interference; but they can hardly 
be said to be independent, as they have exchanged 
the tyranny of the Church for the tyranny of the 
bureaucracy. 

The incongruity of an official Press does not seem 
to strike the ordinary German mind, and we find so 
able a writer as General von Bernhardi demanding, 
as one of the desiderata of the present political situa- 
tion, a strengthening and extension of the official 
Press, a more regular supervision, and a more generous 
support on the part of the Government, which must 
see to it that the newspapers shall inculcate sound prin- 
ciples and patriotic feelings in the subjects of the Kaiser- 

It has been left to a Hebrew journalist, Maximilian 
Harden, to establish the first absolutely independent 
political paper. Harden is unquestionably the most 
brilliant, the most original, the most independent, 
and the most influential journalist of the day. Even 
in France we do not see his equal. He is to the 
present generation in Germany what Heine and 
Boerne were to the second generation of the nineteenth 



Reaction in Germany 87 

century. Whether Die Zukunjt, in order to support 
itself, does not rely too much on sensation and public 
scandal, and whether in Harden the personal equation 
is not too predominant are a different matter ; but the 
editor of Die Zukunft certainly has made himself a 
power, or Machtkaber, of the empire, and the existence 
of his paper, even though its colour may come danger- 
ously near the yellow shade, is a sign of the times. And 
it is one of the most hopeful signs, heralding far- 
reaching changes in the Constitution of the Vater- 
land, where political life has now reached its lowest 
ebb, and where things may have to become worse in 
order to get better. 



MILITARISM IN GERMANY 

We are constantly told that the Germans are an 
essentially pacific people. Friends of Germany in 
this country quote the reassuring speeches of the 
Kaiser, the professions of politicians and of publicists, 
the peace demonstrations of the Socialists. We 
would fain believe those professions, and those who 
make them are no doubt sincere. But there are in 
Germany forces making for war or for warlike feeling 
which are stronger and more significant than any 
peace demonstrations. We are not thinking here 
merely of vested interests, such as the gigantic Krupp 
and Thyssen factories, the shipbuilding yards of Kiel, 
the colossal military industries concerned with the 
production of war material; nor are we thinking 
only of the tens of thousands of officers and Junkers 
who have also a professional interest in war, and who 
are animated with the war spirit. We are mainly 
thinking of those subconscious collective instincts and 
habits — of those deep-seated convictions which supply 
the decisive motives in the activities of nations as well 
as of individuals. Deeds are more important than 
words, but political institutions, historical traditions, 
and especially political and moral ideals, are even 
more important than isolated and ephemeral deeds. 
It is these, and not the interference of isolated politi- 
cians or diplomats, or even of rulers, that in the long 

88 



Militarism in Germany 89 

run supply the ultimate and decisive motives for 
collective action. 

Now, no one who takes the trouble to study, how- 
ever superficially, the traditions, the political institu- 
tions, the ideals of the Prussian people would be 
prepared to argue that they are those of a pacific na- 
tion. Prussia has lived and moved and had her being 
in war. The history of Prussia is essentially the history 
of epoch-making defeats like Jena, and more epoch- 
making victories like Rossbach and Sedan. In the 
opinion of the leaders of Prussian thought, in the 
opinion of university professors, quite as much as in 
the opinion of the professional soldier, war has been 
and still is the great civilizing force — the condition of 
morality in the individual, the source of strength and 
prosperity in the State. 



In the first place, Prussia is military by historic 
tradition, and from the very foundation of the mon- 
archy. In the words of Professor Hans Delbriick 
she is a Kriegsstaat — a war-state. In the words of 
Freytag, ''she is a whole nation of warriors." There 
lies her unique originality in the history of civilization. 
No doubt there have been other military people, 
like the Russians and the Romans. But in the making 
of Russia the Greek Orthodox religion has been an 
even more important force than war. The Romans 
were a military people, but they were even more 
emphatically a political people. They were the 
builders of city and empire, the creators of Law. 
Every schoolbo}^ knows that, however interesting 
may be the campaigns of ancient Rome, even more 



90 The Anglo-German Problem 

interesting and more important are her internal 
struggles — the political conflicts between patrician and 
plebeian, between consuls and tribunes of the people. 

Now, in Prussia there have been no such political 
struggles. The interest of Prussian history is almost 
exhausted when we have narrated the story of its mili- 
tary campaigns, and the story of the internal prepara- 
tion and organization in view of those campaigns. The 
purely political history of Prussia is almost a blank. 
It has been at most a history of administrative reform, 
imposed from above and carried out by statesmen 
like Stein and Hardenberg. We miss the glorious 
fights for civil rights, the inspiring struggles against 
despotism, which even the history of despotic Russia 
reveals to us. Prussia has produced great heroes on the 
battlefield ; she has not produced those civic heroes of 
liberty and martyrs of tyranny ; she has not produced 
those great popular statesmen, who stand on an even 
higher plane. As she has no Brutus and no Gracchi, 
no Cicero and no Caesar, neither has she any Hamp- 
dens or Washingtons, any Cromwells or Mirabeaus. 
And that is why Prussian history to an outsider is so 
unspeakably dull and monotonous, so extraordinarily 
devoid of hiiman interest. That is why even a genius 
like Treitschke or Carlyle cannot impart life to the 
national annals. Whereas most educated men know 
something about the internal history of France and 
England, or Italy and Russia, few men outside Ger- 
many, or outside a small band of specialists, know 
anything about the military chronicles of the Prussian 
monarchy. 

It is to warfare that Prussia owes her territorial 
expansion, her place in modern history. It is to 
warfare that she owes her existence as a State. With- 



Militarism in Germany 91 

out her army Prussia would have remained a barren 
plain, the mark of Brandenburg, the marsh of Pom- 
erania. With her army she has wrested the eastern 
borders from Poland, Silesia from Austria, Hanover 
from its native rulers, Schleswig-Holstein from Den- 
mark, Alsace-Lorraine from France. And just as she 
owes to war her existence as a State, she owes to 
war her supremacy in the empire; for, strange to say, 
the average German feels it almost as an offence if 
you believe in his own political capacity. He accepts 
it as a dogma that without Prussia he could never have 
attained to unity — that, without the Prussian wars 
and without the Prussian leadership, Germany would 
still be a chaos of heterogeneous states. 

Prussia has been a '' Volk in Waff en'' — a nation 
in arms — to use the expression of von der Goltz. In 
other countries the king has been mainly a civil ruler. 
The head of the French Republic is a civilian. Even 
the head of the War Office is not a soldier. So deep 
seated is the distrust of militarism that the French 
President is only one out of many organs of the State. 
In England, even with a change of dynasty, the nation 
does not lose its identity. In a country like Prussia 
the monarchy is the keystone of the political structure. 
You could not conceive of an army without a war lord. 
The Hohenzollerns have been the hereditary war lords 
of Prussia. That is why they are so much more 
intimately identified with the history of their country 
than have been, for instance, the Hanoverian kings 
with the history of England, or the Bourbons with the 
history of France. Without metaphor, and in the 
strict sense of the word, the Hohenzollerns have been 
the master-builders of the Prussian State, if not of the 
German Empire. 



92 The Anglo-German Problem 

The Sieges Allee — the Alley of Victory — that im- 
pressive vista of statues of all the princes, legendary 
and historical, of the Hohenzollern dynasty in the 
park of Berlin — is a striking and symbolical representa- 
tion of the deeds of the royal house of Prussia. The 
Sieges Allee may be an indifferent achievement from 
the point of view of the sculptor; it may be a carica- 
ture of German history in the critical eyes of a scholar ; 
but that intimate association between the Prussian 
kings and the Prussian State, which is the lesson which 
William the Second intended to convey in planning 
the Sieges Allee, is in strict conformity with historical 
fact. 

It is indeed difficult fully to realize how intimate 
that association has been. The modern rationalist 
would express it in the words of Frederick the Great : 
"The Prussian king is the first servant of the State." 
The monarchist of the old school would express it in 
the words of Louis the Fourteenth : '' Vetat c'est mot. " 
William the Second prefers to express it in the mystic 
and biblical phraseology of the "kingship by right 
divine," of the consecration and dedication of the 
"Anointed of the Lord." 

One fact is certain — namely, that the Prussian 
monarchy stands alone amongst European States, 
both in past achievement and present vitality, in 
power and majesty. And one understands the feeling 
of William the First, who obstinately refused in 187 1 
to accept the Imperial title, because his title as King 
of Prussia was higher to him and implied far m.ore 
in political significance than the ornamental and 
shadowy dignity of a German Kaiser. 

In other countries one dynasty has succeeded an- 
other — destroyed like the Valois by its own corruption, 



Militarism in Germany 93 

or swept away like the Stuarts by thetideof revolution. 
In Prussia one and the same dynasty has ruled from 
the dawn of national history down to the present day. 
The Prussian royal title may be recent, and the Prus- 
sian kings may be counted amongst the upstarts 
of royalty, but their political power is of venerable 
antiquity. The Kaiser of to-day is the lineal de- 
scendant of the margraves who defended the marches 
of Brandenburg against the foreign marauder. And 
the spiritual identity is no less remarkable than the 
continuity of the royal succession. However different 
in temper, the Hohenzollerns have all been animated 
with the same spirit, have professed the same political 
creed, have nourished the same high ambitions. 
There was little in common between Frederick the 
Second and Frederick the Fourth; yet the bigoted 
ruler who, after the Revolution of 1848, refused the 
Imperial crown because he would not hold it from the 
will of the people, is as characteristically Prussian as 
the sceptical and cynical friend of Voltaire, who sur- 
rounded himself with men of letters, who played the 
flute, and wrote French verse. Again there was little 
in common between Frederick William the Third and 
William "the Great"; yet the ill-fated vanquished of 
Jena had as exalted an idea of the royal prerogative as 
the Victor of Sedan, who assumed the crown of Charle- 
magne in the Gallery of Battles of the Palace of 
Versailles. 

The true Hohenzollern is not Frederick the Second, 
who although engrossed in war throughout his life, 
yet considered war only as a means to an end. The 
typical Hohenzollern is his martinet father, the 
Sergeant King, to whom his army was something so 
sacred and inviolate that he would never expose it to 



94 The Anglo-German Problem 

the hazards of the battlefield ; who loved the army like 
a true artist — that is to say, for art's sake, for its 
intrinsic beauty, and independently of any practical 
purpose. 

To the true Prussian ruler politics are subordinate 
to warfare. Art and science are either luxuries — as 
music and poetry were to Frederick the Second — or 
they are serviceable tools in the hands of the prince. 
We know the present attitude of William the Second 
to the literature of his day. To him poetry exists 
mainly for the inculcation of patriotism, and for the 
glorification of the heroic deeds of the Hohenzollern. 

MiHtary in its historical tradition, military in its 
dynasty, Prussia is no less military in its social 
organization. 

In England the army is almost invisible. The 
officer does not constitute a distinct class in the com- 
munity. The EngHsh officer is as little as possible of 
a professional soldier. He only dons his uniform when 
he is on duty. In Prussia the officer is nothing if not 
professional. He is drawn, in the higher ranks, from 
the gentry, or Junkertum — for the Prussian nobleman 
owes military service to his liege. The officer forms 
a distinct caste — the first in the State, highest in 
dignity, noblest in the imagination of the common 
people, most beautiful in the dreams of the German 
maiden. A young girl in England who is herself, or 
whose parents are, socially ambitious, will want to 
marry a country gentleman or a man who has gained 
distinction in public life. In Germany she will aspire 
to the hand of an officer. 

In Prussia the army is not only the centre of Society 
life, it is also the avenue to the highest offices, to the 
most coveted posts at Court and in the diplomatic 



Militarism in Germany 95 

service ; it is even the avenue to the most exalted posts 
in the civil service. And therefore there is no griev- 
ance which rankles deeper in the soul of the German 
Jew than to be excluded from the higher military ranks. 
Such is the prestige of the army in Germany that even 
those who cannot belong to the active service desire 
to belong to the Reserve. 

Even the student carries to the university the 
spirit and habits of the regiment; and no student of 
the upper middle class, who in later life wants to play 
his part in Society, considers his education complete 
if he has not fought a duel, if his face is not disfigured 
by a scar. Foreign critics may blame the custom of 
the Mensur as a relic of barbarism; but it forms 
part of the military Prussian system, it assists in 
inculcating the military temper, and it is in accordance 
with the fitness of things that the present German 
Emperor should have pleaded for its maintenance in 
every well-ordered university. 



II 



The Prussian monarchy is no less military in its 
political organization. Prussia remains a Macht- 
staaty not a Rechtstaat. Might is the ultimate criterion 
of political right. And in the last resort the might 
belongs to the Kaiser. Prussia remains an absolute 
monarchy. As we saw in a previous chapter there 
is no parliamentary government, no party system, 
no Cabinet. The ministers are responsible to the 
Chancellor, who is responsible to the Kaiser, who is 
responsible only to God Almighty. 

To outward appearance the Reichstag, elected by 
a semblance of universal suffrage, is a democratic 



96 The Anglo-German Problem 

assembly. We have seen in a preceding chapter how 
deceptive appearances are, and how in reality the 
Reichstag is a reactionary assembly almost by virtue 
of the Constitution. The Conservatives have always 
been in power, and the Opposition is condemned 
to perpetual impotence. We have seen that the con- 
cession of the fiction of universal suffrage was made in 
order to conciliate the southern States and to coerce 
recalcitrant princes, and the concession has never led 
to serious trouble. The Imperial Parliament does not 
possess even the scanty measure of political rights 
which the English House of Commons already pos- 
sessed at the time of the Stuarts. The Reichstag 
is a talking club. It does not initiate legislation. 
It may censure, but its censure does not carry any 
sanction. Its chief duty is to vote military supplies. 
The Minister of Finance is primarily the Paymaster 
of the Forces. 

There has been for some years a mild agitation in 
favour of representative government. It gathered 
force mainly from the blunders of the Government, 
and from the indiscretions of the Kaiser. In 1908 
popular discontent seemed to come to a head. The 
publication of the famous Imperial interview in the 
Daily Telegraph seemed to rouse the temper of the peo- 
ple. The War Lord of Germany pledged himself to 
greater reserve. The Chancellor, Prince von Biilow, 
retired after an adverse vote of the majority of the 
Reichstag. Liberal publicists were elated, and pro- 
claimed that this was the dawn of parliamentary 
government. In reality, Prince von Biilow retired, 
not because he had ceased to please the Reichstag, but 
because he had ceased to be acceptable to his Majesty. 
And so little was the Kaiser concerned about the 



Militarism in Germany 97 

political crisis, that whilst it was raging he spent one 
of the gayest holidays of his busy life. And the storm 
had hardly subsided when, after a few months, William 
the Second emphatically, and more solemnly than ever, 
claimed in his Konigsberg speech the rights which 
he held from God Almighty. ''Sic volOy sic juheo, 
stet pro ratione voluntas. " Even in Russia there would 
have been a rebellion. In Prussia the people once more 
patiently submitted. The Preussische Jahrhilcher 
nodded approval; and public opinion seemed to ad- 
mire the Kaiser all the more for his soldierly pluck 
in asserting his prerogative. 

Future historians will tell us that the one moral of 
the political situation in Germany at the beginning 
of the twentieth century was supplied by the much- 
maligned Herr von Oldenburg when, after the Daily 
Telegraph crisis, he advised his Majesty to send his 
royal soldiers to disperse the unruly assembly. 



Ill 



Even more remarkable than the reactionary and 
military constitution of Prussia is the temper of the 
people who submit to it. From childhood the military 
virtues of discipline and passive obedience are incul- 
cated in the Prussian citizen. Liberty, equality, 
fraternity, are the words which arrest our attention in 
France. Es ist verhoten! are the words which meet 
us everywhere in Prussia. The Prussian may be 
aggressive in the assertion of his claims abroad, but at 
home he is the most long-suffering of subjects. There 
does not exist in the wide world a nation which is more 
pliable, which is more easily governed. Whatever his 
rulers may do, the Prussian never rises; he rarely 
7 



98 The Anglo-German Problem 

agitates, he only occasionally grumbles. And even 
that right of grumbling — of norgling, to use the expres- 
sive German term — has been disputed to poor Michel. 
In one of his early speeches the German Kaiser called 
on the Norgler to shake the dust off their feet and to 
leave the country. The Vaterland had no room for 
pessimists. The Kaiser was right. He was only 
following the logic of Prussian institutions. Is not 
the Prussian State a military organization, and in an 
army is not the public expression of dissatisfaction 
the beginning of rebellion ? 

The ignorant foreigner laughs at the three hundred 
uniforms of the German Kaiser. They have not 
learned the philosophy of Sartor Resartus, the "Clothes 
Philosophy" of Carlyle. They do not know the sym- 
bolical significance of the uniform in a military state, 
nor the superstitious reverence of the Prussian for the 
man with the braided coat and the peaked helmet. 

The Koepenick affair, which a few years ago pro- 
voked the wonder of the world and contributed to the 
gaiety of nations, strikingly illustrates that super- 
stitious reverence. To future historians that ap- 
parently trivial police-court incident gives a deeper 
insight into Prussian politics than many treatises on 
constitutional law, and the ingenious burglar showed 
a deeper understanding of the political psychology of 
his countrymen than many a Prussian statesman. 
And therefore the captain of Koepenick is more cer- 
tain of passing down to posterity than Chancellor 
von Bethmann-Hollweg. 

The little town of Koepenick is about twelve miles 
distant from Berlin, on the Upper Spree, near Mug- 
gelsee. It possesses about twenty thousand inhabit- 
ants, and is one of the favourite excursion resorts of 



Militarism in Germany 99 

the east end of Berlin. On October i6, 1906, at one 
o'clock in the afternoon, a captain in uniform appeared 
at the rifle range of Plotzensee and commandeered a 
company of twelve soldiers who had just been relieved 
from service, ordering them to follow him to the 
neighbouring town of Koepenick. On arrival, the 
"captain" ordered them to load their guns and to 
put on their bayonets; and to the amazement of the 
population he occupied with his little troop the town 
hall, whose issues were carefully guarded. He was 
acting in virtue of an order from the Emperor's 
Cabinet, to which the police submitted without mak- 
ing any further explanations. The "captain " ordered 
the offices of the mayor and treasurer to be opened 
to him. The population had gathered on the square 
before the town hall whilst the gendarmes were holding 
back the crowd. The "captain" ordered the mayor 
to close his accounts, and to hand over to him the 
municipal treasury, which amounted to four thousand 
and two marks. But there was a deficiency of one 
mark . With the presence of mind which he maintained 
to the end, the "captain" had a statement drawn up, 
and ordered the cashier to seal the bag containing the 
money, which by superior orders he had to remove to 
Berlin. The mayor and the treasurer were then 
conducted under military escort to their respective 
domiciles, where cabs, summoned by the police, were 
waiting to take them to Berlin. The wife of the mayor 
refused to be separated from her husband, and she took 
a seat with him in the cab. The brigadier of police 
took a seat in front of them and a grenadier took a 
place beside the cabman. The same procedure was 
followed with regard to the treasurer, and the two 
cabs started for the Berlin army headquarters, where 



loo The Anglo-German Problem 

the "captain" arranged to join the prisoners, whilst 
he himself was leaving by rail. When the cabs 
stopped in Berlin before the sentry at Unter den 
Linden, their arrival caused great sensation, and the 
officer on duty immediately telephoned to headquar- 
ters. The commander of Berlin, General von Moltke, 
arrived at once, and the mystery was discovered. The 
audacious "captain" had disappeared. 

It requires a stretch of imagination which exceeds 
the power of a jejune Englishman to realize that such 
an incident should have been possible in a capital of 
two million people at the beginning of the twentieth 
century. How is an insular Englishman to conceive of 
a burglar, merely because he has donned an officer's 
uniform, entering a town hall in glaring daylight; 
arresting the mayor and officials; ordering the books 
and the municipal treasury to be handed over to him; 
sending the magistrates to prison in a cab ; and finally, 
walking away with the spoils, without having his 
authority once questioned by the bewildered but 
obedient municipal officers. In other countries such 
an incident would belong to comic opera. In Prussia 
it reveals the tragedy of despotism, the total absence 
of political initiative, the perversion of popular char- 
acter, and the passive obedience of an unpolitical 
nation which yet claims to rule supreme over the 
civilized world. 

IV 

A lover of paradox might plausibly contend that 
the German Socialist Party furnishes a more con- 
vincing proof than any other party of the military 
character of the Prussian monarchy. For th? Prussian 



Militarism in Germany loi 

Social Democracy possesses in a sublime degree the 
same military virtues of passive obedience and dis- 
cipline as the Kaiser's army. The Social Democratic 
Party is the army of labour, and the authority of 
"Kaiser Bebel," as he is nicknamed, is as absolute 
over this army of labour as the Kaiser's majesty over 
his Junkers. To the same military discipline we must 
attribute the law-abiding temper of the German 
Socialist, which is in such striking contrast with the 
revolutionary temper of Socialist parties everywhere. 
In other countries, for instance in Belgium, the Social 
Democratic Party possess as strong an organization 
as in Germany ; but that does not prevent the labour- 
ers from rising against the powers that be. Street 
riots and barricades are not unfrequent episodes. In 
the last resort, when the claims which they assert are 
not granted, when legal means are exhausted, the So- 
cialists appeal to the sanction of force. The Belgian 
Socialists in 1902 rose against the Conservative Gov- 
ernment to secure the abolition of the electoral law 
and the plural voting system. Regiments were called 
out, and quelled the popular insurrection after several 
days' fighting. Only a few weeks ago they rose in 
spontaneous insurrection to protest against the in- 
crease of the Clerical majority at the parliamentary 
elections. 

In Prussia, for forty years. Socialists have protested 
by all legal means against an electoral law infinitely 
worse than the plural voting law of Belgium, against 
a law which even Bismarck proclaimed it necessary to 
amend. All those Socialist protests have been in 
vain, and the Prussian electoral law still subsists. 
Yet the Socialist Party does not rise. Bismarck 
again and again violated the Constitution of the land. 



102 The Anglo-German Problem 

But the Socialists have remained quiet, law-abiding 
citizens. 

At a distance Socialists appear formidable. In 
reality the Government does not fear them. Socialism 
is rather to the Prussian Government a useful bug- 
bear to frighten the timid into reaction. Whenever the 
Social Democrat raises the red flag, the Government 
waves the black and white flag of the Hohenzollern. 
All loyal citizens rally round the Imperial banner, and 
the army and navy budgets are passed with acclama- 
tion. Without Socialism, reaction in Germany would 
be in a sorry plight. With the extreme division of 
parties in the Reichstag, the Government again and 
again would come to a deadlock. It is Socialism 
which supplies the propelling force. Even as in 
Belgium, where political conditions are very much 
like the conditions of Germany, the Socialist scare 
has kept the same Clerical Party in power for the 
unprecedented period of twenty-eight years, even so 
in Prussia Socialism has been the mainstay of reaction. 

And that is why, although the Socialists have an 
immense following, they have achieved very little. 
It is a singular and paradoxical fact that the most 
drastic Socialist legislation was passed before Socialism 
had become a party in the Reichstag. No social laws 
which have been voted for the last twenty years 
could compare for instance with the State Insurance 
laws, which were carried through at the very beginning 
of the present Kaiser's reign. And the reason is 
obvious. When the Socialist vote was only an insigni- 
ficant minority, the Social Democrats were still sur- 
rounded with the halo and the prestige of terror, and 
the Government strained every effort to conciliate 
them, or to disarm their opposition. But now 



Militarism in Germany 103 

that the Socialist vote is counted by millions, the 
German Government have ceased to trouble. They 
have learned from experience how innocuous and law- 
abiding are the German "Genossen. " They have 
learned from experience how much worse their bark is 
than their bite. The Government would indeed have 
dreaded the Social Democracy if, like the French 
Syndicalists, they had appealed to force. But the 
Prussian democracy does not appeal to force. In 
Prussia it is only the police and the Government that 
have the sanction of brute force behind them. 



It may be contended that the military traditions 
and the social and political organization are relics of 
a distant past, that a new spirit is revealing itself, 
that old Germany is rapidly passing away. There 
would be some reason for entertaining such a belief, 
if the political and moral ideals of the rising generation 
were not instinct with exactly the same military 
spirit as the old traditions and institutions. I know 
that the average journalist does not trouble much 
about ideals, and that he pays far more attention to 
a sensational move in the ever-changing chess game 
of politics. Yet, once more, if we want to make a 
reliable forecast of the future, we must not forget that 
it is ideals which in the long run count most in the 
practical policy of nations. Political institutions may 
only be historical survivals, hut ideals always point to 
the future. To use Carlyle's expression, ''The future 
is nothing but the 'realized ideal' of the people." 
Ideals, once they have taken firm possession of the 
national mind, are the guiding motives, the permanent 
forces, the lodestars of nations. The whole French 



104 The Anglo-German Problem 

Revolution is contained in Rousseau. The whole 
English Free Trade policy is contained in Adam 
Smith. English Radicalism is contained in Be tham 
and in Mill. English Tor^^ism is contained in Burke. 
It is the moral and political ideals which, together 
with economic and geographical conditions, make 
human history. 

Now the moral and political ideals of Germany 
have never been more military, they have never been 
less pacific than they are to-day. The French people, 
the English, and even the Russians have long ceased 
to believe in war as the mainspring of human progress. 
Whether we take Bentham or Mill, Burke or Stephen, 
the English ideal is that of an industrial community, 
of a free commonwealth, not of a military State. The 
English ideal is that of a Rechtstaat, not of a Kriegstaat. 

Some of the most influential political philosophers of 
England have been under the influence of Darwin, of 
the doctrine of the struggle for life and the "survival 
of the fittest. " And in our day we see many militar- 
ists still adducing Darwin as the exponent of a mili- 
tary philosophy. There could be no more shallow 
and confused interpretation of the Darwinian theory 
as applied to human society. For no thoughtful 
Darwinian would be prepared to admit that the fittest 
are the most warlike, and that the struggle for life must 
necessarily take the form of war. On the contrary, 
a Darwinian would remind us that war is the applica- 
tion of anti-Darwinian principles, and that war, like 
emigration, by eliminating the young and the brave, 
tends to the survival of the unfittest. To the English 
Darwinian philosopher the struggle for life takes many 
forms; and the decisive Ft"Uggle for life in modern 
humanity is not the external and superficial struggle of 



Militarism in Germany 105 

the battlefield, but the permanent and deeper internal 
struggle of the city, of the laboratory, of the workshop, 
of the home, of the soul, the struggle for political rights 
or legal rights, the struggle for religious freedom, the 
economic struggle for a living or for a higher standard 
of living, the struggle for truth. And therefore the 
martyr and civic hero is a truer apostle of the 
Darwinian theory than the soldier. 

Such is the political philosophy of the Englishman, 
which has become the political philosophy of the 
European. Such also was the political philosophy of 
old Germany, of Herder and Goethe, of Lessing and 
Kant. Kant wrote in favour of perpetual peace. 
Lessing expounded the ''education of the human race. " 
But not such is the political or moral ideal of modern 
Germany hypnotized by Prussia. That ideal is based 
on a totally different Weltanschauung. Contemporary 
German philosophy is a "war philosophy." In 
France we may find isolated thinkers, like Joseph de 
Maistre, who are the apostles of war, who maintain 
that war is a divine and providential institution, one 
of the eternal verities. In Germany the paradoxes 
of De Maistre are the commonplaces of historians 
and moralists. To an Englishman war is a dwindling 
force, an anachronism. It may still sometimes be a 
necessity, a dura Lex, din. ultima ratio, but it is always 
a monstrous calamity. In other words, to an English- 
man war is evil, war is immoral. On the contrary, to 
the German war is essentially moral. Indeed, it is 
the source of the highest morality, of the most valu- 
able virtues, and without war the human race would 
speedily degenerate. It is the mainspring of national 
progress. There are three causes which have ensured 
the present greatness of the German Empire: moral 



io6 The Anglo-German Problem 

virtue in the individual, political unity, and economic 
prosperity. If we were to believe modern theorists, 
Germany owes all three to the beneficent action of 
war. Germany is not indebted for its culture to the 
genius of its writers or artists, but to the iron and 
blood of its statesmen and warriors. It is the glorious 
triumvirate of Bismarck, Moltke, and von Roon who 
have been the master-builders of the Vaterland. 

It may be contended that the same ' ' war philosophy ' * 
still survives in France, all the preaching of Tolstoy, 
all Hague Conferences and Peace Congresses notwith- 
standing. And it may be argued that the universal 
popularity of Napoleon is in itself a sufficient proof of 
that military tendency of our age. But the pacific 
temper of the French people has been again and again 
demonstrated in recent times, and the worship of 
Napoleon has little in common with the "war 
philosophy" of Germany. What appeals to us in 
the Napoleonic campaigns is the romance of war, its 
glamour, its pomp and circumstance, the prodigious 
and unique story of the "Corsican adventurer." 
And what ennobles the Napoleonic wars is the Revolu- 
tionary ideal which they originally carried from one 
end of Europe to the other, the democratic institutions 
which the Imperial legions have done so much to 
spread. And what appeals in Napoleon himself is 
the statesman and lawgiver more than the soldier, and 
the lawgiver more than the statesman, and the man 
more than either the soldier, the statesman, or the 
lawgiver. It is the "man of destiny, " the superman, 
the Titanic personality, the sublime parvenu, that 
makes a universal appeal to the imagination of 
mankind. 

The doctrinaire militarist politics of Mommsen 



Militarism in Germany 107 

and Treitschke, of von Sybel and Houston Stewart 
Chamberlain, have nothing to do with the poetic 
interest which we take in the Napoleonic legend. 
Whether we are French or English we read the 
Memoirs of Marbot or Segur, not as we read the 
Memoirs of Frederick the Great, but as we read 
the battles of the Iliad or of the Nibelungen, as we 
read the War and Peace of Tolstoy. When we read 
the immortal Russian novel, we do not pause and 
ponder to consider whether Tolstoy is in favour of war 
or against war. So little is our interest in the story 
identified with the pacifist principles of Tolstoy, that 
in most translations the philosophic part is entirely 
left out. Now it is exactly the philosophical, the 
moral significance of war, which arrests the Prussian 
mind. To him war is not merely a theme for poetry 
and romance. He does not admire it for its pictur- 
esqueness or its dramatic beauty. To him it has an 
austere grandeur, an intrinsic nobility. 

Our main contention then is, that as the pacific 
philosophy of Herder and Kant, or Goethe and Lessing 
provides the key to the old Germany described in 
Madame de Stael's masterpiece, even so the military 
philosophy of Mommsen and Treitschke, of Bismarck 
and Nietzsche gives us the key of modern Prussianized 
Germany. The whole German people have become 
Bismarckian, and believe that it is might which creates 
right. The whole of the younger generation have 
become Nietzschean in politics, and believe in the will 
to power, der Wille zur Macht. That political philo- 
sophy is to-day the living and inspiring ideal which 
informs German policy. And it is that philosophy 
which we have to keep constantly in mind if we wish 
to understand the currents and undercurrents of con- 



io8 The Anglo-German Problem 

temporary politics and make a correct forecast of the 
future, if we wish to distinguish between what is real 
and unreal in international relations, between the pro- 
fessions of politicians and the aims and aspirations of 
the people. German statesmen may protest about 
their love of peace, but the service they render to 
peace is only lip service. Peace is only a means, war 
is the goal. We are reminded of Professor Del- 
briick's assertion that, considering the infinitely com- 
plex conditions of modern warfare, many years of 
peace are necessary to and must be utilized for the 
preparation of the wars which are to come. 

How, then, can we be reassured by any German 
pacifist protests and demonstrations? How can we 
believe that German peace is anything more than a 
precarious truce as long as German statesmen, Ger- 
man thinkers, German teachers and preachers unani- 
mously tell us that the philosophy of war is the only 
gospel of salvation? How can a patriotic German, if 
he is consistent, abstain eventually from waging war 
when he is firmly convinced that his country owes her 
political unity, her moral temper, and her Imperial 
prosperity, whatever she is and whatever she has, 
mainly to the agency of war? When war has done so 
much for Germany in the past, will it not do greater 
things for Germany in the future? 

War may be a curse or it may be a blessing. If 
war is a curse, then the wells of public opinion have 
been poisoned in Germany, perhaps for generations 
to come. If war is a blessing, if the philosophy of war 
is indeed the gospel of the superman, sooner or later 
the German people are bound to put that gospel into 
practice. They must look forward with anxious and 
eager desire to the glorious day when once more they 



Militarism in Germany 109 

are able to fight the heroic battles of Teutonism, when 
they are able to fulfil the providential destinies of 
the German super-race, the chosen champions of 
civilization. 



A PRUSSIAN GENERAL ON THE COMING 
WAR' 



As a nile the deliberate military policy of a nation 
remains the secret of diplomacy and the afterthought 
of statecraft. As for military feeling and the military 
spirit, so far as they exist amongst the people, they 
generally remain subconscious, unreasoned, and in- 
stinctive. It is therefore a piece of rare good fortune 
to the student of contemporary history when the 
designs of statesmen are carefully thought out and 
revealed by one who has authority to speak, and when 
the instinct of the masses is explained and made ex- 
plicit by one who has the gift of lucid statement, of 
philosophical interpretation, and psychological insight. 
It is precisely those qualities and characteristics that 
give importance and significance to the recent book of 
General von Bernhardi on Germany and the Coming 
War. The author is a distinguished representative 
of that Prussian Junkertum which forms the mainstay 
of the military party and which rules the German 
Empire. He therefore speaks from the inside. And 

^ General Friedrich von Bernhardi, Deutschland und der 
Ndchste Krieg. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, Stuttgart und Berlin, 
1912. 

no 



A Prussian General on the War in 

his previous works have earned him a high reputation 
as an exponent of the science of war, and have worth- 
ily maintained the traditions of Clausewitz and von 
der Goltz. Nor are these the only qualifications 
of the author. General von Bernhardi's new book 
possesses other qualities which entitle him to a re- 
spectful hearing. He writes with absolute candour 
and sincerity; his tone is unexceptionable; he is 
earnest and dignified; he is moderate and temperate; 
he is judicial rather than controversial. Although 
the author believes, of course, that Germany stands 
in the forefront of civilization and has a monopoly of 
the highest culture, yet his book is singularly free 
from the one great blemish which defaces most Ger- 
man books on international politics — namely, sys- 
tematic depreciation of the foreigner. Von Bernhardi 
does not assume that France is played out or that 
England is effete. He is too well read in military 
history not to realize that to belittle the strength or 
malign the character of an enemy is one of the most 
fruitful causes of disaster. 

Altogether we could not have a better guide to 
the study of the present international situation from 
the purely German point of view, nor could we find 
another book which gives us more undisguisedly the 
"mentality," the prejudices and pre-judgments, and 
opinions of the ruling classes. And it is a charac- 
teristically German trait that no less than one-third 
of the work should be given to the philosophy and 
ethics of the subject. General von Bernhardi surveys 
the field from the vantage-ground of first principles, 
and his book is a convincing proof of a truth which we 
have expressed elsewhere that in Prussia war is not 
looked upon as an accident, but as a law of nature; 



112 The Anglo-German Problem 

and not only as a law of nature, but as the law of man, 
or if not as the law of man, certainly as the law of the 
"German superman." It is not enough to say that 
war has been the national industry of Prussia. It 
forms an essential part of the philosophy of life, the 
Weltanschauung of every patriotic Prussian. Bern- 
hardi believes in the morality, one might almost say 
in the sanctity, of war. To him war is not a necessary 
evil, but, on the contrary, the source of every moral 
good. To him it is pacificism which is an immoral 
doctrine, because it is the doctrine of the materialist, 
who believes that enjoyment is the chief end of life. 
It is the militarist who is the true idealist because he 
assumes that humanity can only achieve its mission 
through struggle and strife, through sacrifice and 
heroism. It is true that Bernhardi ignores the great- 
est of Prussian philosophers, whose immortal plea in 
favour of perpetual peace is dismissed as the work of 
his dotage. But if he dismisses Kant, he adduces 
instead a formidable array of thinkers and poets in 
support of his militarist thesis; Schiller and Goethe, 
Hegel and Heraclitus in turn are summoned as author- 
ities. Even the Gospels are distorted to convey a 
militarist meaning, for the author quotes them to 
remind us that it is the warlike and not the meek that 
shall inherit the earth. But Bernhardi's chief au- 
thorities are the historian of the super-race, the An- 
glophile Treitschke, and the philosopher of the 
superman, Nietzsche. Nine out of ten quotations 
are taken from the political treatises of the famous 
Berlin professor, and the whole spirit of Bernhardi's 
book is summed up in the motto borrowed from 
Zarathustra and inscribed on the front page of the 
volume : 



A Prussian General on the War 113 

War and courage have achieved more great things than the 
love of our neighbour. It is not your sympathy, but your 
bravery, which has hitherto saved the shipwrecked of existence. 

"What is good?" you ask. To be brave is good. 

(Nietzsche's, "Thus spake Zarathustra, " First Part, loth 
Speech.) 

It is no less characteristic of contemporary German 
political philosophy that from beginning to end Bern- 
hardi maintains consciousl}^, deliberately, a purely 
national attitude, and that he does not even attempt 
to rise to a higher and wider point of view. Indeed 
the main issue and cardinal problem, the relation of 
nationality to humanity, the conflict between the 
duties we owe to the one and the duties we owe to the 
other, is contemptuously relegated to a footnote (p. 
19). To Bernhardi a nation is not a means to an end, 
a necessary organ of universal humanity, and therefore 
subordinate to humanity. A nation is an end in itself. 
It is the ultimate reality. And the preservation and 
the increase of the power of the State is the ultimate 
criterion of all right. " My country, right or wrong, ** 
is the General's whole system of moral philosophy. 
Yet curiously enough Bernhardi speaks of Germany 
as the apostle not only of a national culture, but of 
universal culture, as the champion of civilization, and 
he indulges in the usual platitudes on this fertile 
subject. And he does not even realize that in so doing 
he is guilty of a glaring contradiction; he does not 
realize that once he adopts this standpoint of universal 
culture, he introduces an argument and assumes a 
position which are above and outside nationalism. 
For either the German nation is self-sufficient, and 
all culture is centred in and absorbed in German}^ in 
which case Prussian nationalism would be historically 



114 The Anglo-German Problem 

and philosophically justified; or culture is something 
higher and more comprehensive and less exclusive, 
in which case national aims must be estimated and 
appraised with reference to a higher aim, and a na- 
tional policy must be judged according as it furthers 
or runs counter to the universal ideals of humanity. 

General von Bernhardi starts his survey of the 
international situation with the axiom that Germany 
imperatively wants new markets for her industry and 
new territory for her sixty-five millions of people. 
In so doing, he only reiterates the usual assumption 
of German political writers. And he also resembles 
the majority of his fellow publicists in this respect 
that he does not tell us what exactly are the territories 
that Germany covets, or how they are to be obtained, 
or how the possession of tropical or sub-tropical 
colonies can solve the problem of her population. 
But he differs from his predecessors in that he clearly 
realizes and expresses, without ambiguity or equivoca- 
tion, that the assertion of her claims must involve the 
establishment of German supremacy, and he admits 
that those claims are incompatible with the antiquated 
doctrine of the balance of power. And von Bernhardi 
also clearly realizes that, as other nations will refuse 
to accept German supremacy, and to surrender those 
fertile territories which Germany needs, German 
expansion can only be achieved as the result of 
a conflict — briefly, that war is unavoidable and 
inevitable. 

First of all a war with France. And here again, 
in expressing his conviction that Germany must 
primarily settle accounts with the French people, the 
Prussian General involves himself in a curious con- 
tradiction. He tells us that Germany wants war 



A Prussian General on the War 115 

because she wants an expansion of power and territory, 
which could only be obtained as the prize of victory. 
He ought, therefore, to accept, like a true disciple of 
Bismarck and Nietzsche, the full responsibility of the 
war. He ought to have the courage of his convictions. 
But the General has not that courage, and he refuses 
to incur that responsibility. He proceeds at once to 
shift the burden on to the French people, and he tells 
us that France ultimately must be held accountable, 
because France is still animated with the spirit of 
revenge, with the desire to avenge Metz and Sedan, 
and to recover her lost provinces. 

Now, whoever knows the state of public opinion 
in France also knows that the assertion of the General 
is absolutely contrary to fact, and that the French 
people will only fight if they are attacked. No 
doubt they will fight with grim determination if driven 
into war; no doubt they will not allow themselves to 
be dispossessed of any part of their colonial empire 
simply because Germany wants an outlet for her 
population ; but it is certain that France will never be 
the aggressor, that she will never initiate a war either 
for revenge, or for honour, or for lust of territory. 
She will refuse to be the aggressor, not only because 
the stakes are too high and the country too rich and 
prosperous, but because a war, whether successful or 
unsuccessful, would be fatal to the ruling classes of the 
Third Republic: if unsuccessful, the Republic would 
be swept away in the disaster; if successful, the vic- 
torious general would establish a dictatorship or 
restore the monarchy. 

Even as Bernhardi thinks a war with France un- 
avoidable, so he believes that a war with England 
cannot be warded off. And here once more, with 



ii6 The Anglo-German Problem 

strange inconsistency and lack of moral courage, he 
would like to relieve his countrymen of a formidable 
responsibility. In his opinion it is England that is 
determined to attack Germany and to annihilate her 
fleet and her trade. But here again any one acquainted 
with the trend of public opinion in England knows that 
von Bernhardi is ludicrously wrong in assuming that 
England will gratuitously attack her neighbour. The 
writer himself admits that until 1902 the very possi- 
bility of a war with Germany had never entered the 
brain of an English statesman, whereas it is a bare 
fact that the probability of a war with England has 
occupied for forty years the thoughts of leading 
German historians and politicians. In one sense it is 
true that if German policy is really what he assumes 
it to be, Prussian diplomacy may so "shuffle the cards " 
that England may be compelled to take the initiative 
of war. And Bernhardi is right in assuming that 
England might be driven into war, not only to repel 
an attack against her own shores, but to repel a wanton 
attack against France. England may have to wage 
war to maintain that very balance of power which the 
Prussian General dismisses so contemptuously as an 
exploded principle of policy. Many will agree that in 
such an event, England, in fighting for herself, would 
fight once again for European liberty. As in the days 
of Philip the Second, of Louis the Fourteenth, and 
Napoleon, England may have to defend once again 
the independence of the European continent. The 
English reader will have difficulty in repressing a smile 
when, by a curious inversion of parts, the gallant 
General claims for his own country this glorious posi- 
tion of champion of European liberty. For is it not, 
so he argues, the English mastery of the sea which is 



A Prussian General on the War 117 

threatening the independence of all nations? And he 
does not hesitate to urge this strange plea for the 
German Empire at the very same moment when he 
clairns for the German Empire the undisputed su- 
premacy of the Continent. ^ Verily Prussian patriot- 
ism does lead its apostles to adopt strange readings 
of European history. 

II 

Assuming the war with France and England to be 
inevitable, von Bernhardi realizes that the conflagra- 
tion cannot be restricted to those two countries. 
Not only would the allies of the Triple Entente and the 
Triple Alliance be drawn in, but even the small neutral 
countries would not escape. Nations like Belgium, 
Holland, and Denmark could not possibly remain dis- 
interested spectators, for Denmark would have to 
keep the gates of the Baltic open to the German fleet 
and keep them shut to the British fleet. If she did 
not consent to this, her territory would have to be 
occupied. Copenhagen would have to be bombarded 
as it was during the Napoleonic wars. And in the same 
way Belgium and Holland would have to keep the 
mouths of their rivers open to German traffic to 
supply Germany with foodstuffs, and to carry on 
German trade under a neutral flag. If they did not 
discharge that vital function they would have to be 
conquered. In short, even assuming England to re- 
tain the mastery of the sea, every move of England 
on the sea would have to be answered by a German 
conquest on the Continent. 

^ It is true that in his new interpretation of European history, 
Napoleon was, as against England, the champion of European 
liberty. 



ii8 The Anglo-German Problem 

The war of to-morrow, therefore, will not be like the 
War of 1870, a war confined to two belligerent forces: 
it will be a universal European war. Nor will it be a 
humane war, subject to the rules of international law, 
and to the decrees of The Hague Tribunal : it will be 
an inexorable war; or, to use the expression of von 
Bernhardi, it will be *'a war to the knife." Nor will 
it be decided in a few weeks like the War of 1870: it 
will involve a long and difficult campaign, or rather a 
succession of campaigns; it will mean to either side 
political annihilation or supremacy. 

General von Bernhardi legitimately assumes that a 
war so momentous, so decisive, in which the whole 
future of his country is at stake, must be anxiously 
prepared for in every detail. And the preparation 
must be twofold: diplomatic and national. 

The diplomatic preparation can be summed up in 
one sentence: it must aim both at strengthening the 
Triple Alliance and at weakening the Triple Entente. 

With regard to the weakening of the Triple Entente, 
von Bernhardi does not seem to be very hopeful. 
Recent events in Morocco have shown that it will not 
be easy to separate France and England. It is true, 
on the other hand, that at the Potsdam Conference, 
German diplomacy succeeded in driving a wedge 
between France and Russia. But any rapprochement 
between Germany and Russia can only be temporary 
and precarious. The interests of two Governments 
may be identical in both countries, because there is a 
solidarity and complicity of despotism, but the inter- 
ests of the two nations are absolutely opposed and the 
Slav feeling in Germany, as in Austria and in Russia, 
is every year growing more bitter against the Teuton. 

German diplomacy must therefore devote itself 



A Prussian General on the War 119 

mainly to strengthening the Triple Alliance, and this 
can only be done by two means: first, by consolidating 
the bond with Italy; and secondly, by securing the 
support of young Turkey, and thus transforming the 
Triple Alliance into a Quadruple Alliance. 

The existing alliance with Italy has, unfortunately 
for Germany, been loosened by the Franco-Italian 
understanding, and by the Tripolitan War, and it is 
permanently endangered by Italy's determination to 
recover Trieste and the other Italian-speaking parts 
of the Austrian Empire. In order to be linked for ever 
to Austria and Germany, Italy must, therefore, be 
made to give up her irredentist aspirations. If Italy 
were ever to become an Adriatic Power, she would 
sooner or later come into conflict with Austria. On 
the contrary, if Italy could be made a Mediterranean 
Power, she would necessarily come into conflict with 
France and England. It must therefore be the 
constant endeavour of Austro-German diplomacy to 
divert Italian ambitions from the Adriatic to the 
Mediterranean, from the eastern towards the south- 
ern shores. And there are many signs to-day which 
indicate that the preaching of General von Bern- 
hardi is meeting with an all too-ready hearing in 
Italy. An influential Nationalist section of the Italian 
people is bent on securing for Italy the possession of 
Tunis and Algeria, and on restoring in favour of 
Italy the ancient Mauretanian Empire of the Romans. 
These Mauretanian conquests shall be the prize of the 
Italian alliance with Germany and Austria in the 
coming war. 

The consolidated Triple Alliance must be still 
further strengthened by the adherence of Turkey. 
Von Bernhardi is perfectly right in assuming that a 



120 The Anglo-German Problem 

Turkish alliance would be of supreme advantage to 
Germany. The chief Mohammedan Power, if it 
took sides against England, would rouse the religious 
fanaticism of the Mussulman population of Egypt and 
India, and part of the British fleet might have to be 
diverted from northern waters to quell a rebellion in 
the East. And there is considerable danger that 
Turkey may be dragged into the Quadruple Alliance. 
As I have attempted to prove elsewhere, Germany is 
every day strengthening her grip of the Turkish 
Empire. But we may still hope that the Turks may 
see in time that a war with England would be suicidal, 
for although the Kaiser has proclaimed himself the 
protector of three hundred million Mohammedans, 
it is more than doubtful whether he would be able 
to help them in their hour of need. In the present 
Tripolitan War, as well as in the Moroccan imbroglio, 
Turkey has had solemn warnings, and has been made 
to realize how little she can rely on German promises 
or on German support. Not to mention the danger 
arising from Russia, Constantinople would be at the 
mercy of a British fleet. Turkey would risk complete 
annihilation for the doubtful advantage of becoming, 
in case of victory, a German protectorate. 



Ill 



If the views of General von Bernhardi's Realpolitik 
in matters of foreign policy are often unreal and fan- 
tastic, and do not resist the most superficial examina- 
tion, it must be granted that he does not overrate their 
importance. After all, the issue of the coming war will 
not rest with the diplomats, but with the German 
nation. For the "coming war" will be pre-eminently 



A Prussian General on the War 121 

a national war, and must be met by national pre- 
parations. Victory can only be secured if every 
German citizen rises to the emergency, submits to the 
necessary sacrifices, and if the German State has the 
foresight and energy to make adequate financial, 
technical, and political preparations. 

With regard to the financial preparation, the great 
danger lies in the stinginess of the Reichstag. Its 
guiding principle seems to be that current military 
expenditure must be met from the ordinary revenue. 
Such a principle might be legitimate enough in 
ordinary times, but in critical times, such as those in 
which we are living, extraordinary needs must be met 
by extraordinary means — that is to say, by loans. 
The resources of the German taxpayer are very far 
from having reached their extreme limit. Whereas 
England pays for her army and navy twenty-nine 
marks per head of the population, Germany only pays 
sixteen. England has always set an example to other 
nations in administering her finances wisely and cau- 
tiously, and at the same time in providing liberally for 
the defences of the country. Let Germany imitate 
the example of England in both respects. The wars 
of the Revolution and the Empire were not paid out 
of the ordinary revenue, and after a hundred and 
twenty years the English taxpayer is still paying off 
the enormous debt accumulated at the end of the 
eighteenth century. Yet English statesmen acted 
with supreme wisdom in thus burdening the future 
in order to secure a victory. For defeat would have 
mortgaged the future of the people far more than the 
heaviest loan. 

In discussing the technical preparation for the com- 
ing war, General von Bernhardi warns his country- 



122 The Anglo-German Problem 

men against blindly accepting some universally 
prevalent assumptions, and especially the assumption 
that victory will be mainly ensured by sheer weight of 
numbers. And here, unexpectedly enough, the mili- 
tarist is almost found to agree with the pacifist. The 
General strongly protests against the odious rivalry 
in armaments and the superstitious belief in big 
battalions. He reminds us that in the past victories 
have always been achieved by minorities. History 
has proved by examples innumerable that masses have 
only been a decisive factor in war when the adversaries 
were equal in all other respects, or when "the numer- 
ical superiority of one army exceeded the measure 
and proportion which is fixed by the law of numbers. " 
But in most cases it was a particular advantage on one 
side — better equipment, superior valour of the troops, 
superiority in command or superiority in the motives 
of action — which ultimately secured victory even 
against overwhelming odds. Rome conquered the 
world with minorities. Frederick the Great with 
minorities defended himself against the Powers of 
Europe allied against him. Quite recently the Japan- 
ese army triumphed over adversaries enormously 
superior in numbers. 

Not only will victory not be decided by numbers, but 
numbers may prove a positive danger, for the greater 
the masses, the smaller the technical value of the 
troops. Unwieldy armies not only make far greater 
demands on the commanders and presuppose far 
greater organizing power, but they are also far more 
difficult to move, and mobility on the battlefield is 
one of the essential conditions of success. 

Quality, then, is far more important than quantity. 
In the infinitely complicated war of to-morrow, which 



A Prussian General on the War 123 

will be full of surprises, everything will depend on the 
fighting qualities of the unit, on the initiative of the 
soldier — on the "personal equation" of the individual. 
And those indispensable military qualities can only 
be acquired by protracted service. At present uni- 
versal service exists only in name, and the present 
German Government has tried to replace it by increas- 
ing to an enormous extent the reserve forces. Von 
Bernhardi has little faith in the reserve for offensive 
purposes, and he leaves us in no doubt as to his opinion 
by calling the reserve "a military proletariate." 

It is interesting to compare Bernhardi's views 
with those of one of the ablest parliamentary leaders 
and publicists of Germany. Dr. Friedrich Naumann 
has emphasized the fundamental differences between 
the war of yesterday and the war of to-morrow, and 
has pointed out what will be the chief difficulties the 
military command will have to contend with. 

The war of the future is a problem of economic organization 
of the most difficult nature and the highest technical achievement, 
such as has never been hitherto demanded from any army. The 
old military qualities must give way to the organizing qualities. 
No doubt the courage and endurance of the individual soldier 
must remain for all times the foundation of military power, but 
organizing genius is required in order not to waste that courage 
and endurance. This is clearly shown from a mere examination 
of the colossal numbers engaged. To transport, to locate, and 
to feed these masses of men is Ihe daily preoccupation of the 
military authorities. That they rightly understand the nature 
of the problem is certain, but it is very doubtful whether the problem 
can ever be adequately solved by commanders who are recruited from 
the Junkertum. Mere military capacity does not suffice here. 
Both enemies and friends admit that our corps of officers possess 
such military capacity. Anxiety only arises with regard to their 
other qualifications. We know that our nation possesses in its 
industries successful organizers, brains accustomed to direct great 



124 The Anglo-German Problem 

quantities of material and "personnel" — men who create new 
conditions of life for whole economic districts without having 
to appeal to any mystical authority. As democratic politicians 
we may often have to oppose bitterly those captains of industry, 
but if it comes to war we shall be willing to be led by them, because 
we know that they have the brains. It is true that they must 
not meddle with the technical duties of the officers, but the admin- 
istration of the war material must be their province. And even 
with regard to the technique of war, it becomes from year to year 
more questionable whether this can be managed more efficiently 
by a corps of noblemen than by the representatives of middle- 
class technique. However much we may value the moral quali- 
ties of the old ruling class — and, with all political differences of 
opinion, we shall not minimize those qualities — we must admit 
that we are witnessing a transformation of methods of attack and 
defence which in addition to the old question of iron discipline 
raises the modern question : how far shall we be able on the battle- 
field to replace the human unit through machinery? It is 
obvious that this will never succeed completely, for there does 
not exist a machine which does not need a human soul to work it. 
At the same time it is doubtless that in this direction mighty 
changes are at hand. We can see here a repetition of the process 
which we notice in nearly all industries — the subordination and 
displacement of human labour in mines, machines, and means of 
transport. If you examine a weaving mill you shall find com- 
paratively few men : the whole place is already full of the produce 
of labour which has been accomplished elsewhere. Even so in 
war: the front ranks must be supplied with human units in as 
limited a quantity as possible; but those units must have the 
mechanical ability in the blood. Those conditions do already 
exist to a large extent in naval warfare. Ships are built and 
equipped with an insignificant number of men compared to their 
fighting power. But those men must work like animated ma- 
chines. Even so the air fleet of to-morrow will demand a large 
amount of technical application and technical ability, but very 
few military units. War is becoming impersonal, and is becoming 
reduced to a rivalry of money and economics. That even here 
military members of the nobility may achieve great results is 
shown by the admirable example of Count Zeppelin. But the 
impression remains that there still survive in the army the 
traditions of the pre-industrial age — traditions not only of 



A Prussian General on the War 125 

loyalty and discipline, but also of technical ignorance. We have 
still too much of the parade soldier whose knees are more pliable 
than his fingers or his brain. The industrializing of the army is 
coming, but very slowly. It begins with the artillery, but it ends 
at the cavalry. We have still failed fully to realize that under 
a system of universal service a nation pays and labours in order 
that its weapons shall be absolutely of the first class. The 
nation which can put the best technique into the military service 
will probably, in the altered conditions of modern warfare, 
achieve victory. 

Whether Dr. Naumann is right or wrong, there can 
be no doubt that General von Bernhardi studiously 
avoids the tremendous economical and organizing 
issues raised by modern warfare; and the reason 
probably is that he could not have done so without 
trespassing on the province of controversial politics. 
He would have had to examine whether the patriarchal 
and feudal regime in Germany is calculated to en- 
courage that organizing genius and that technical 
preparation which, according to Dr. Naumann, will be 
so vital in the war of the future. 

IV 

We do not feel qualified to discuss the technical 
merits of Bernhardi's proposals, but with regard to 
his plan of campaign we draw special attention to the 
two chapters on the naval part. The Leitmotiv of 
those chapters is that German naval strategy will have 
to be mainly defensive. But although the German 
navy will have to fight under the cover of her coast 
defences, she may utilize the favourable opportunity 
to make surprise attacks on the British fleet. Nor 
must we forget that the German army will be able to 
co-operate with the naval defences. After all, the 



126 The Anglo-German Problem 

ultimate issues of the campaign in the future, as in 
the past, must depend on the land forces ; and it is on 
the Continent, in France or Belgium, that the decisive 
battles will be fought. 

Precisely because the final issue will largely depend 
on the personality of the soldier, the moral and civic 
preparation must be at least as important as the 
technical, and here the Government has an important 
part to play through the school and through the Press. 
Both the school and the Press must both persistently 
emphasize the meaning and the necessity of war as an 
indispensable means of policy and of culture, and must 
inculcate the duty of personal sacrifice. To achieve 
that end the Government must have its own popular 
papers, whose aim it will be to stimulate patriotism, 
to preach loyalty to the Kaiser, to resist the disinte- 
grating influence of Social Democracy. 

But not least important is the political preparation 
for the war. Statesmanship and diplomacy confine 
themselves too much to consolidating alliances and 
entering into new understandings. Nothing could be 
more dangerous than to rely too much on treaties and 
alliances. Alliances are not final. Agreements are 
only conditional. They are only binding, rebus sic 
standibus, as long as conditions remain the same — as 
long as it is in the interest of the allies to keep them; for 
nothing can compel a state to act against its own inter- 
est, and there is no alliance or bond in the world which 
can subsist if it is not based on the mutual advantage 
of both parties. It is therefore essential that the war 
shall be fought under such conditions that it shall be 
in the interest of every ally to be loyal to his engage- 
ments; and therefore it is essential for the State so 
to direct and combine political events as to produce 



A Prussian General on the War 127 

a conjuncture of interests and to provoke the war at 
the most favourable moment. 

There seems to prevail the idea that Germany ought 
on no account to take the offensive. For ten pages 
von Bernhardi strongly opposes that popular assump- 
tion, and urges the necessity for Germany to take the 
initiative. He protests against a timorous and ex- 
pectant policy; there may be in the history of the 
nation moments so critical that it becomes the duty 
of the rulers to take the initiative. 



Wherever we open the book of history we find everywhere 
evidence of the fact that wars begun with virile decision at the 
right moment have produced, poHtically as well as socially, the 
happiest results. On the contrary, political weakness has only 
produced misery, because the statesman lacked the decision to 
take upon himself the responsibility of a necessary war, because 
he expected to bring about by diplomatic negotiations the solution 
of irreconcilable conflicts. 

The Great Elector has laid the corner-stone of Prussian power 
by successful offensive wars. Frederick the Great has laid the 
comer-stone of Prussian power by successful offensive wars, and 
has followed the traces of his glorious ancestor. He noticed how 
his state hovered in an untenable intermediate position between 
that of a petty principality and that of a Great Power, and he 
showed himself determined to give a decisive character to this 
ambiguous existence. The aggrandizement of this territory 
had become a necessity if Prussia wanted to exist on a business 
footing and bear its royal name with honour. The king saw this 
political necessity, and took the bold decision to challenge Austria. 
None of the wars which he waged were forced upon him. None did 
he postpone to the last extremity. Always he reserved it to 
himself to initiate the attack, to forestall his adversaries, and to 
secure the most favourable chances. 



''The great art of politics," says Frederick the 
Great, **is not to swim against the stream, but to 



128 The Anglo-German Problem 

turn every condition to one's own advantage. " The 
art of politics consists much more in utilizing fa- 
vourable conjunctures than in preparing for those 
conjunctures. Cleverness is better calculated to 
preserve what one already possesses; boldness alone 
is capable of adding to one's possessions. When 
Frederick heard the news of the Emperor Charles 
the Sixth's death, he said to his privy councillors: "I 
will submit a problem to you. When one has an 
advantage over one's opponent, must one or must 
one not utilize it?" 

This necessity for Germany to abandon a "timorous 
and expectant policy" is the Leitmotiv of von Bern- 
hardi's book. "In a bold initiative lies our salvation 
to-day as much as in the times of Frederick the Great. 
We must look at this truth with a clear eye. " 

It may be objected, no doubt, that an aggression on the part 
of Germany might produce an unfavourable position by bringing 
about those very conditions under which the Franco-Russian 
alliance would come into force. If we did attack France or Rus- 
sia, either ally would be compelled to come to the rescue, and 
we would find ourselves in a much worse position than if we had 
only to combat one adversary. // must therefore he the duty of 
our diplomacy so to shuffle the cards as to compel France to attack us. 
We might then expect that Russia might remain neutral. 

One thing is certain, we shall not determine France to attack us 
by mere passive waiting. Neither France nor Russia nor England 
need attack us to obtain what they want. As long as we are afraid 
to be the aggressors, they can, through diplomatic means, subject 
us to their will, as has been proved by the recent Moroccan events. 
And therefore, if we wish to bring about an attack on the part of our 
enemies we must initiate a political action which, without attacking 
France, yet will hurt her interests, and those of England, so severely 
that both states will feel obliged to attack us. The possibilities 
for such a procedure present themselves as well in Africa as in 
Europe. 



A Prussian General on the War 129 



With these unmistakable and ominous words of the 
Prussian General we conclude our examination of 
his book, for they convey its most instructive lesson 
and they express its main significance. 

It cannot be said that, so far as the probable issue 
of the coming war is concerned, the author has lifted 
the veil which hides the future from us. Rather has 
he made darkness more visible. Precisely in em- 
phasizing that the moral factor will be the decisive 
one, he has deepened the mystery and uncertainty, 
because moral forces cannot be calculated. And the 
very fact that the "coming war" will be one of life 
and death is in favour of France, for it ought to inspire 
the French with the courage of despair. 

The interest and importance of the book, therefore, 
is not due to any fresh light which it throws on the 
military problem. Rather is it due to the vivid light 
which it throws on the state of public opinion in Ger- 
many, and especially on the ''mentality" of those in 
high places. The General has spoken with the frank- 
ness of the soldier, and not with the reticence of the 
diplomat. The British people will be grateful to the 
gallant soldier for his candour, however cynical. 
They will remember some of his admissions and some 
of his indiscretions, and they will perhaps be less 
inclined to political optimism — less inclined to assume 
that the present differences between Germany and 
England are to be removed by international courtesies, 
by parliamentary visits and banquets, or that the 
present difficulties will be solved by a policy of passive 
acquiescence and blissful repose. 



NATIONALISM IN GERMANY AND THE 
PERVERSION OF PATRIOTISM 

The erroneous political philosophy which in 
Germany has produced the prevailing militarism has 
also resulted in a perverted, exclusive, and aggressive 
nationalism. Whereas England has slowly extricated 
herself from the shackles of a narrowing and insular 
patriotism, and has risen to a higher and nobler 
conception of a free empire, the German people still 
continue to worship the old heathen idols of jingoism. 



There is no task which is more urgently needed to- 
day than a careful and systematic working out of a 
true philosophy of patriotism, and a searching criticism 
of the current political ethics, mainly in their inter- 
national aspects. The most confused notions continue 
to prevail on the relations of one nation to another, 
on the relations of nationality to humanity, on our 
respective duties to the one and to the other. Yet 
those questions are not only of vital philosophical 
value, but also of far-reaching practical importance, 
for on the answer which we shall give to them must 
depend in many cases the issues of peace and war. 

We seem to take our moral philosophy from two 
entirely difiEerent sources, according as it is concerned 

130 



Nationalism in Germany 131 

with private or with public life. Our private 
morality we take from the Gospels, but our public 
morality we take from paganism. In the one we 
recognize the jurisdiction of Christ; in the other we 
proclaim our allegiance to Caesar. Once we have 
crossed the national frontier, our neighbour ceases to 
be a fellow-Christian; he becomes a foreigner and an 
alien, and in our relations to him we obey a different 
moral code. Virtues and vices change names ; collec- 
tive egotism is dignified into the virtue of patriotism ; 
deceit, lying, double-dealing, which would dis- 
honour a private citizen, are dignified into principles : 
the Will to Power, or the raison d'etat. Greed and 
pride, which in private life would be cardinal sins, 
become political virtues, and assume the disguise of a 
noble ambition and a high sense of honour. 

Patriotism, therefore, very far from being the 
simple and obvious idea which we assume it to be, 
is essentially complex and contradictory. If it has 
inspired the most heroic deeds, it has also been per- 
verted to the most ignoble uses. And the moral 
perversion is based on an intellectual confusion. 
And as this intellectual confusion arises from the 
fact that we fail to distinguish the different elements 
which it contains, our first task must be one of careful 
dissociation and analysis. 

In its primary sense patriotism is the love of our 
native country. It is a beneficent provision of nature 
by which the barren plains and bleak climates of the 
North inspire as passionate a devotion in man as 
the smiling vineyards and the radiant sunshine of the 
South. The moral idea need not enter into this ele- 
mental love. It is born of habit and instinct, of 
association and adaptation, and we deserve no credit 



132 The Anglo-German Problem 

for it. As Montaigne already remarked in the six- 
teenth century, the "savages of Scotland do not care 
for the gardens of Touraine. " We do not love our 
country because it is beautiful or wealthy; we love 
it because it is our native country. 

In another and wider sense, and considered from the 
point of view of the community and not from the point 
of view of the individual, patriotism is mainly the 
instinct of self-preservation. It is the collective 
instinct which compels the citizen to rise in defence 
of his country when it is threatened by a foreign 
invader. It is the same feeling which animated the 
Red Indians to defend their virgin forests against the 
"pale-face" intruder, and which during the great 
Revolution sent fourteen armies to the frontier. This 
patriotism, again, is not in itself a moral virtue. 
Rather is it an organic necessity. It is a spontaneous 
vital reaction of the community. It may lead to 
heroic deeds, just as maternal love inspires the most 
sublime sacrifice even in jackals and tigers. Very 
frequently it is conducive to the most flagrant viola- 
tion of right. It is often only a pretext to invade and 
despoil our neighbours. Patriotism, as has been said, 
is often the last refuge of a scoundrel. 

But in our complicated and artificial civilization it 
is but seldom that we meet patriotism in its primitive 
and instinctive forms. It is generally mixed up with 
other elements. It is not only the spontaneous love 
of the individual for the country of his birth — it is not 
only the spontaneous reaction of the community in 
time of danger — patriotism becomes an absolute 
principle, an ideal of public duty, the most compre- 
hensive of virtues. 

It is at this point, when we try to dissociate the 



Nationalism in Germany 133 

natural and instinctive elements and the moral and 
artificial elements which enter into the composition 
of patriotism, that one difficulty after another arises 
to confront us. Why should we owe a duty to the na- 
tion merely as such, and what is the moral foundation 
of nationality? Why should we necessarily consider 
a nation as an Absolute, as a moral personality, when 
it is often only a geographical expression, or a state 
based on physical force, or a territory which may be 
merely the spoils of conquest? And why should there 
be a double and often contradictory morality? Why 
should the moral law which guides us in private life 
cease to guide us in public life? And even though 
our country may have a right in the hour of danger 
to claim the sacrifice of our lives, why should it also 
have a right to claim the surrender of our moral con- 
science? And ought not the national ideal be kept in 
strict subordination to the higher ideals of humanity? 

If we examine the different answers which have been 
given to those questions we shall find them equally 
wrong. The answer of the man in the street is super- 
ficial or immoral; the answer of the philosopher is 
inadequate and unreal. 

The general assumption which underlies the argu- 
ment of the philosopher is that we can only realize our 
highest moral ideals in the State and through the State, 
and that in the State we live and move and have our 
being. But this assumption demands considerable 
qualification, and is mainly a survival of antiquity. It 
is derived from a time when the State — the Politeia or 
Civitas — absorbed all the activities, temporal and 
spiritual, of the citizen; when the State was indeed 
the source of all human morality, of human knowledge 
and human art. But Christianity has broken up the 



134 The Anglo-German Problem 

ancient State, and has divested it of most of its moral, 
religious, and artistic attributes. Christianity has 
given us a divided duty. It has introduced the internal 
and eternal struggle between the City of Man and 
the City of God. Modern thought has completed the 
disintegrating process, and to-day, in addition to the 
conflict between the selfish individual impulses and 
the duty which we owe to the State, we are distracted 
between the claims of the narrow national activities 
and the wider human activities. So far is the State 
from being the foundation of morality, that moral 
progress has generally been obtained in defiance 
of national law; so far is the national state from 
entirely absorbing our activities, that all the highest 
activities of man — art, science, and religion — are 
to-day not national but international. 

The classical doctrine, then, provides far too narrow 
a foundation for modern patriotism and modern 
nationality. It does not take into account the subtle 
and complex changes which have passed over the 
modern world; it does not enlighten us on the 
manifold conflicts of our divided duties. 

On the other hand, can it be said that the popular 
conception of patriotism is any more satisfactory 
than the abstract doctrines of philosophers? Is the 
wisdom of the people wiser than the wisdom of the 
theorist? Shall we find a more secure foundation for 
patriotism in any assumed superiority of culture of 
one nation over another? 

Is the Hungarian patriot justified in forcing the 
Magyar culture on the Croatian and Roumanian 
people simply because in his opinion Magyar culture 
is superior? Is a Russian and Prussian patriot jus- 
tified in imposing Russian and Prussian culture upon 



Nationalism in Germany 135 

the Polish nation because they are assumed to be 
superior to Polish culture? Would England be jus- 
tified in imposing English culture on the South Afri- 
can Dutch because English culture is assumed to be 
superior to the Dutch? 

In reply to that argument we assert that the supe- 
riority of any one culture cannot possibly be proved. 
On the contrary, it can be proved that no such supe- 
riority does exist; and even if it did exist, it could not 
justify outside interference. 

Our first contention is that no absolute superiority 
of one civilized people over another can be proved. 
Experience shows that any assumption of superiority 
is purely subjective and arbitrary, and is invariably 
challenged by a contrary assumption on the part of 
other nations. Not only every great nation but every 
small nation brings forward the same claims, and is 
equally proud of its historic achievements. Italians 
and Spaniards, Dutchmen and Belgians, Danes and 
Swedes, Russians and Germans, Englishmen and 
Frenchmen, all boast equally of their superior culture. 

And our second contention is that if the superiority 
of one nation over another cannot be proved, it is for 
the simple reason that such superiority does not exist. 
For where would be the final criterion of such supe- 
riority? Would it be in the realm of thought or in the 
realm of action? Would it be in science or in religion, 
in painting or in music, in commerce or in politics? 
No nation is superior to another nation in every one 
of those activities, and it is impossible to assert which 
of those activites is more important than the other. 
As the result of a natural law and of a universal law 
which we shall presently examine, in virtue of the law 
of economy and the law of compensation, we generally 



136 The Anglo-German Problem 

find that in proportion as one nation is superior in 
one activity it will be inferior in another direction, 
if the Englishman may claim superiority in politics, 
the German may claim superiority in music, in art, 
or in philosophy. 

And our third contention is that, even if the supe- 
riority of one nation could be proved, it would not 
justify that aggressive policy which is the policy 
recommended by the average patriot. Because the 
German is superior to the Pole or to the Tchech it 
does not justify him in depriving the Tchech or the 
Pole of his land or his language or his political 
rights, not only because the Pole might one day him- 
self become superior, if he were allowed to expand, 
but simply because moral or political superiority 
cannot be imparted by force — simply because in 
oppressing the Pole the Prussian would not improve 
the Pole, but would himself deteriorate below the level 
of the Pole. Violence demoralizes both the people 
who use it and the people against whom it is being 
used. 

There may be extreme cases where outside inter- 
ference is justified, as in the case of the colonization 
of a degraded race by a demonstrably superior race, 
as in the case of the domination of a white race over a 
coloured race. But even if we assume that the rule of 
the -white race over a coloured race invariably benefits 
the black or the yellow race, such interference is irrele- 
vant to the argument of patriotism. The Englishman 
does not interfere in Africa or in Asia mainly in order 
to introduce English civilization: he interferes in the 
name of our common Christianity and humanity. 
In India, after one hundred and fifty years of rule, the 
English do not think themselves justified in forcing 



Nationalism in Germany 137 

upon the natives specific English institutions like 
representative government or trial by jury. Nor have 
they even used their political power to introduce 
Christianity. The right of intervention in the case 
of inferior races is not limited to one nation — it is a 
right, and indeed a duty, which is supposed to be 
common to all Western powers. It is the duty of the 
white man, who claims this additional burden, because 
he is stronger to bear it. So true is this that the 
colonization and evangelization of the dark places of 
the earth — the ''partition" of Africa and of Asia — 
have been arranged in our days by international agree- 
ments. It has not been claimed as the sole right or 
duty or "providential" mission of one supreme 
Power. 

We must therefore seek elsewhere for the moral 
foundations of patriotism. We must seek other 
reasons to justify the principle of nationality, and we 
shall find that those reasons are exactly the opposite 
of the reasons which are generally advanced. The 
ultimate mxoral reason for the existence and mainten- 
ance of those political units which we call nationalities 
lies not in the exclusive superiority of any nation, but, 
on the contrary, in the limitations which are incidental 
to every nation. We believe in nationality, not be- 
cause any one nation has monopolized all the virtues, 
but because no nationality can possibly monopolize 
or has monopolized all the virtues; because each 
nation has only received certain specific gifts; and 
because other nations and other conditions are re- 
quired to develop other gifts which may be equally 
important. We believe in nationality, not in order 
that all nations shall be made similar — not in order 
that there may be established one abode of political 



138 The Anglo-German Problem 

perfection, one ideal commonwealth — but because in 
God's universe there must be many mansions. 

And we prefer the diversity of nationalities rather 
than the uniformity of a universal Roman Empire for 
the same reasons which make us prefer the varied 
landscape of coast and mountain rather than the 
uniform level of one vast plain, however rich and 
fertile. We prefer the diversity of nationality for 
exactly the same reasons which make us prefer 
individuality and personality rather than the sameness 
of an abstract type. As no climate or country can 
produce all the fruits of the earth, so no single nation 
can produce all the fruits of culture. As the English 
soil does not produce grapes, so the English tempera- 
ment does not produce plastic art, and has left it to 
the Southern nations to create the divine harmonies 
of music. England is a great civilization; but, great 
as it is, it is not complete. 

Ours is a ''pluralistic" universe, to use the expres- 
sion of William James, a universe of free activities; 
and this pluralistic principle applies to the political 
world as much as to the moral and spiritual world. 
All nations are complementary. No national civiliza- 
tion is complete, and its incompleteness is the neces- 
sary result of a natural law ; whether we call that law 
the law of compensation, or the law of limitation, or 
the law of division of labour, or of differentiation, 
or the law of variation; or whether we call it, in 
philosophical language, the principium individuationiSy 
of individuality and personality; or whether we at- 
tribute it, with the theologian, to the taint of original 
sin and the imperfection of human nature. 

Therefore separate nations can only develop in some 
directions, and all superiority in one direction must be 



Nationalism in Germany 139 

paid for by inferiority in another direction. A few 
chosen individuals — a Leonardo da Vinci, a Michael 
Angelo, a Goethe — may escape from this fatality. 
Whole nations, millions of individuals, cannot escape 
from it; and for that reason we find that some nations 
are great in the arts of peace and others in the art 
of war. Some are supreme in commerce, others in 
philosophy. Some are supreme in theology, others 
are supreme in science. And for the same reason it is 
in the greatest nations that we find the most startling 
shortcomings and deficiencies. England has not pro- 
duced one single supreme musician or sculptor; Ger- 
many has not produced one single comic poet ; Scotland 
has not produced one single mystic thinker ; Spain has 
not produced one single supreme scientist. 

Each nation, then, by virtue of its economic con- 
ditions, agricultural or industrial — by virtue of its 
geographical position, insular or continental, moun- 
tainous or level — by virtue of its historic traditions, 
military or peaceful. Catholic or Protestant — develops 
a culture of its own, strictly limited, necessarily 
imperfect. And it is precisely because of those limita- 
tions and imperfections, and in order to ensure the 
diversity and complexity of humanity, that as many 
nations as possible should be allowed to retain and 
develop their individuality — their artistic, religious, 
intellectual, and political personality. To subject 
Europe to the influence or to the political control of 
one single Power would be to transform Europe into a 
Chinese Empire. Even assuming Germany, England, 
or France to be vastly superior to their neighbours, 
the supremacy of any one nation would be a catas- 
trophe for civilization. It would damage both the 
victor and the vanquished, and it would damage the 



140 The Anglo-German Problem 

victor more than the vanquished. The vanquished 
might develop certain qualities under suffering and 
persecution, the victor would be demoralized by the 
use of brute force, and his spiritual superiority would 
disappear by the very abuse he would make of it. 

The invariable verdict of universal history is 
against any monopoly and supremacy — against any 
form of aggressive Imperialism, political or religious, 
imposing its rule in the name of a higher civiliza- 
tion. The Roman Empire was destroyed by the very 
weapons which were used to subject inferior races. 
The Romans were the victims of the very tyranny 
which they used against others, and Roman decadence 
was only arrested because the policy of aggressive Im- 
perialism was reversed ; because the spiritual forces of 
religion, law, education, and commercial intercourse 
were eventually substituted for temporal supremacy; 
and because even the barbarians were granted the 
same political rights as the citizens of Imperial Rome. 
But even thus the revival of the Roman Empire was 
only temporary, and a time came when the unity and 
uniformity of Rome were replaced by the infinite 
diversity of the Middle Ages. 

Even at its best Imperialism is not a human ideal. 
Civilization is not based on unity, but on diversity 
and personality, on individuality and originality. 
And if there is one lesson which history preaches more 
emphatically than another, it is this: that small 
nations have in proportion contributed infinitely more 
than great empires to the spiritual inheritance of 
our race. Little Greece counts more than Imperial 
Rome; Weimar counts more than Berlin; Bruges and 
Antwerp and Venice count more than the world-wide 
monarchy of Spain ; and the dust of the Campo Santo 



Nationalism in Germany 141 

of Florence or Pisa is more sacred than a hundred 
thousand square miles of the black soil of the Russian 
Empire. 

No doubt there must be unity in the fundamentals, 
economic and religious, of human civilization. As the 
infinitely varied phenomena of life suppose common 
chemical and physiological processes of combustion, 
of respiration, and circulation, even so the infinite 
complexity of social life supposes a common founda- 
tion. Full scope must be given to the diversity of 
human nature and human personality. 

In conclusion, then, our political philosophy in 
general, and our philosophy of patriotism in particular, 
require complete revision. True patriotism is at the 
opposite pole from jingoism. The ideal of nationality 
is not born of pride, but of humility. Nationality is 
not based on the superiority of any one people, but 
upon the limitations common to all mortality. Na- 
tionality does not justify the supremacy of the strong : 
it imposes and presupposes a scrupulous regard for the 
equal rights of the weak, who may be superior in 
moral culture in proportion as they are inferior in 
military power. 

In the light of the foregoing principles the word 
*' empire" completely changes its meaning. The 
modern empire has nothing in common with the em- 
pires of the past. The modern empire may be based 
on identity of language, although the British Empire 
includes French-speaking and Dutch-speaking peoples, 
and although the Austro-Hungarian Empire is a very 
Babel of nations. The modern empire generally 
assumes community of political ideals. It never 
implies the rule of a suzerain people over subject 
races. It is not based on despotism, but on voluntary 



142 The Anglo-German Problem 

co-operation. It is essentially a federation of self- 
governing communities, and is presided over by an 
older, wiser, and more experienced people, primus 
inter pares, which, establishes its rule not on brute force, 
but on the force of suasion and example and sacrifice. 

If those principles are correct — if each nationality 
must be conceived as one out of many specialized 
organs of human culture — if the theory of nationality 
is indeed the application to the science of politics of 
the principles of compensation, concentration, and 
division of labour — then it must necessarily follow that 
nationality can be neither final nor exclusive, neither 
absolute nor universal. 

The national ideal cannot have absolute value. 
The universal only is absolute; and a national ideal, 
as such, cannot be universal. If it were, it would 
cease to be national; it would necessarily appeal to 
universal humanity. 

And national ideas as such cannot be final. Nation- 
ality is the means and condition of human advance; 
but it is humanity which is the goal. By definition, 
nationality is deficient and limited. We must submit 
to and work within those limitations. We must not 
glorify those limitations into perfections. We must 
lay upon our souls the humblest tasks of citizenship. 
We must not claim for this humble service the 
august significance and the unlimited scope of the 
service of man. As we stated before, the highest 
activities of mankind — art, science, and religion — 
have all ceased to be national. They have all be- 
come international. 

And the national ideal cannot be exclusive. We 
must see to it that humanity shall not suffer from 
exclusive absorption in national aims. And above 



Nationalism in Germany 143 

all, we shall never allow the national ends to be in 
opposition to the interests of humanity. In order 
to be good Englishmen and good Germans we must 
first of all be good Europeans. There exists a soli- 
darity of Europe and America against Asia and Africa. 
An offensive alliance of one European nation with an 
Asiatic people against another European nation — as, 
for instance, the alliance of England and Japan 
against Russia, or the alliance of Germany with 
Turkey, or the old diabolical compacts of the English 
and the French with the Red Indians — is a crime 
against civilization. 

And therefore the popular catchword, "My coun- 
try right or wrong," is a perversion of patriotism. 
Wrong does not cease to be wrong, and injustice 
and persecution do not cease to be injustice and per- 
secution, simply because, instead of being inflicted 
upon individuals, they are inflicted upon millions of 
sufferers. We know that in the world of crime there 
exist admirable examples of devotion — that even a 
burglar may be loyal to another burglar unto death; 
but a citizen owes no loyalty to national crime. I 
shall not stand by my country if she is morally wrong ; 
and the highest service I can render her is to prove 
that she is wrong, and to prevent her from persisting 
in the wrong. If I cannot persuade my country 
when she pursues an unjust policy, all I can do is to 
wish and pray that she may not succeed, and that she 
may be defeated : for a defeat on the battlefield may be 
a great blessing — the only means to bring a nation 
back to sanity and to see the evil of her ways; whilst 
victory obtained in a wrong cause may be the most 
awful calamity that can befall a nation, and one that 
may deflect the whole course of national history. 



144 The Anglo-German Problem 

II 

The political philosophy which we have just outlined 
has been slowly gaining ground in England. The 
English ideal of nationality has been broadening out 
into the ideal of a federation of nations, and the Eng- 
lish conception of patriotism has been undergoing a 
corresponding change. We are not reverting to the 
vague cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth century, but 
we are more and more abandoning that spurious and 
narrow jingoism which can be best described as col- 
lective egotism, and which remains the most formid- 
able stumbling-block in the advance of humanity. 
We still retain the permanent foundation, the eternal 
human element, the love of the native city. Indeed, 
our relationship to the city is growing more intimate. 
We are again looking at the city with the passionate 
devotion of a citizen of mediseval Florence or Venice. 
We are gradually realizing that there is ample scope 
for our citizenship in the little civic group, and that as 
the family is the nucleus of the city, the city is the 
nucleus of the commonwealth, and that the health of 
the larger group is bound up with the prosperity of the 
smaller. 

Our political progress may be largely imconscious. 
Our political philosophy may still be vague. It may 
not yet be based on the firm rock of principle. It 
may still be at the mercy of catchwords and phrases. 
It m_ay not be a match for powerful vested interests. 
The English people never were a nation of systematic 
thinkers; they have left it to Montesquieu, Tocque- 
ville, and Guizot to frame a complete theory of the 
British Constitution and of representative govern- 
ment. But the English political practice has ever 



Nationalism in Germany 145 

been in advance of political theory. The English 
people have learned from bitter experience. Their 
wisdom has been the outcome of their blunders. It 
has also been the necessary result of national expan- 
sion, and expansion on insular and parochial principles. 
The American Commonwealth was lost to England 
through class rule and selfish statecraft. Wise 
statesmanship has brought one-third of the habitable 
globe under British rule; and that rule is to-day the 
most just, the most moderate, the most tolerant, and 
the most adaptable, the most progressive, govern- 
ment of the modern world. 

The bond which holds together the different parts 
of the British Empire may be difficult to define. It 
is always difficult to define the higher and deeper 
realities of life. One fact is certain: that bond is not 
material, but moral and spiritual. It does not appeal 
to the lust of power and greed. It appeals to the 
imagination and to the ethical sense of the English 
people. Economic interests may divide — indeed, 
must divide — the different parts of the British Empire. 
As in private life the material interests of different 
members of one family are necessarily contrary — 
as the demands of one child on the paternal inherit- 
ance must encroach on the portion of the other — so 
the commercial interests of Canada and Australia may 
run counter to the interests of the English people. 
But if they are divided in economic interests, the 
different parts of the British Empire are united in the 
communion of the same ideals. In all parts we find 
the same love of order and liberty, the same respect 
for personality, the same abhorrence of tyranny, the 
same participation in the glorious inheritance of 
English literature. Hostile tariffs may be imposed 



146 The Anglo-German Problem 

to keep out British imports; no tariffs can keep out 
the ideals of British culture. 

And what is true of the political ideal of England 
is largely true of the French ideal. The Frenchman 
has always been a humanist. In the words of Ma- 
caulay, "the French mind has always been the inter- 
preter between national ideas and those of universal 
mankind. " It is the law of France, the Code Napoleon, 
which has been adopted to-day by the greater part 
of the civilized world, and the universality of French 
culture is expressed to-day in the wonderful inter- 
nationality and universality of the French language. 
As in England, so in France, the human ideal does not 
exclude and impoverish the national ideal; rather 
does it include it and enrich it. The French patriot 
is all the prouder of his country, he is all the more en- 
thusiastic in its service, because he feels that the cause 
of France is identified with the service of humanity. 



Ill 



Whilst the national spirit in France and England 
has been steadily widening, exactly the opposite 
process has taken place in Prussia. 

The German writers of the eighteenth century were 
pre-eminently teachers of humanism. The very 
idea of nationalit}^ seems to have been alien to them. 
Literature and philosophy were cosmopolitan. Even 
Frederick the Great only spoke French, and surrounded 
himself mainly with French writers. Goethe would 
not be made into a jingo; he retained his admiration 
for Napoleon; he refused to follow in the steps of 
Korner, and to write patriotic verses. Schiller was 
willing to be made a French citizen by a revolutionary 



Nationalism in Germany 147 

assembly. Kant forgot that he was a Prussian, that 
he belonged to a military state, and he wrote in favour 
of eternal peace. Heine spent the greater part of his 
life in France, and was permeated with French influ- 
ences. An ideal cosmopolitanism was the charac- 
teristic of the Golden Age of German poetry and 
German thought. 

Something of that cosmopolitanism has survived 
to-day in German literature. It may be partly 
accounted for by the dearth of contemporary German 
art, which again is the penalty of German materialism. 
But it is largely the result of that intellectual curiosity 
which survives as one of the most precious legacies of 
the German past. Ibsen, Tolstoy, Gorki, Maeterlinck, 
Bernard Rhaw, Oscar Wilde, are as popular across the 
Rhine as in their native countries. No literature can 
boast of such an admirable body of translations; and 
in this respect the Germans are onl}^ surpassed by the 
Russians. 

But in politics the German people have become 
narrowly national, intolerant, and aggressive. Na- 
tional selfishness is glorified into a principle. The 
oppression of other nationalities is extolled as a duty. 

I repeat once more that we ought, no doubt, to 
make every allowance for the fiery outburst of German 
jingoism. Germany is politically a young nation, and 
all young nations seem to pass through this malady 
of political infancy. And the exclusive nationalism of 
to-day may only be a temporary as well as a necessary 
reaction against the vague and unpractical cosmo- 
politanism of former generations. We must con- 
stantly remember that Germany until the middle of 
the nineteenth century remained a geographical 
expression. Even as an exile who has long been a 



148 The Anglo-German Problem 

homeless wanderer appreciates all the more intensely 
the blessings of a home, so the German has developed 
a passionate attachment to his country. But this 
attachment has become the all-absorbing, jealous, 
suspicious, and morbid passion of an unbalanced lover. 
German patriotism has become distorted, perverted, 
and is to-day an inexhaustible source of political evil. 
It seems as if to-day it cannot assert itself without 
assuming a hostile attitude to other nations. Claim- 
ing every privilege for his own nationality, the German 
refuses every political right to other nations. He 
demands, not equality, but supremacy. He does not 
base his right on the moral principle of respect for 
personality. Pedantry is joined to violence, and the 
university professor becomes the accomplice of the 
policeman in establishing his claim on the superiority 
of German culture, on the right of the superman 
and the super-race to rule inferior man and inferior 
races, oblivious of the fact that the claim of German 
superiority is mainly one of military strength. 

The relation of the Teuton to non-Teutonic nations, 
both in the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire, is one of the saddest chapters in contemporary 
history. Danes in Schleswig-Holstein, Poles in Posen, 
Frenchmen in Alsace-Lorraine, are denied the most 
elemental political rights. In Austria, German op- 
pression is worse. Austria-Hungary has been de- 
scribed as the whirlpool of Europe. It might be more 
fittingly described as the international pandemonium 
of the Continent. The barren strife of nationalities 
paralyzes progress and removes every landmark of 
political morality; and each nation avenges itself 
when opportunity arises, and the oppressed in turn 
becomes the oppressor. Even as the Germans oppress 



Nationalism in Germany 149 

the Tchechs and the ItaHans, so the Poles oppress the 
Ruthenians, and the Magyars the Croatians and the 
Roumanians. Racial politics in Germany and Austria 
are so chaotic and bewildering that it has become 
impossible to decide on which side is the right or on 
which side the wrong. The twentieth-century politics 
of the two empires, inspired by the evil genius of 
Prussia, is a convincing proof of the truth of the 
political philosophy which we have attempted to out- 
line, and will be to future generations an eloquent 
object-lesson, showing to what extremities of barbar- 
ism even a great nation can be driven which ignores the 
fundamental principles of political morality and fol- 
lows the will-o'-the-wisp of a perverted patriotism and 
an inflated imperialism. 



HOW PRUSSIA TREATS HER OWN SUBJECTS 

At the end of the eighteenth century a state which 
had played an important part in the history of modern 
civilization was effaced from the map of Europe and 
its territory divided between Prussia, Russia, and 
Austria. The partition of Poland had been a fore- 
gone conclusion from the beginning of the century. 
For generations the three empires had been sowing 
dissension amongst the Polish noblemen and fanning 
religious hatred, and had rendered government impos- 
sible in the elective monarchy. At last the designs 
of the three neighbouring empires had been fulfilled. 
The deed had been done, and, to use the delicate 
witticism of Frederick the Great, the three mon- 
archs were able to "communicate and partake of the 
eucharistic body of Poland. " 

The deed was done, yet the ultimate political pur- 
pose of the three despots was frustrated. The Polish 
nation was killed, but not the Polish nationality. 
Ever since the fatal partition Poland has remained an 
open sore in the body politic of Austria, Russia, and 
Prussia. The Polish question is behind every great 
difficulty which arises in Central Europe. On the 
one hand, it has created a solidarity of reaction and 
despotism, the three empires being equally interested 
in preventing the realization of Polish national aspira- 
tions. Above and behind the present Triple Alliance 

150 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 151 

of the Austrian, Russian, and Italian people there is 
another secret triple alliance of the three emperors, 
held together by a common interest to keep down the 
Polish nationality. On the other hand, the twenty 
millions of Poles distributed along that historical 
frontier line where the three continental empires meet 
are also held together by the invisible bond of com- 
mon sufferings, common traditions, and common 
aspirations. 

Every political symptom seems to indicate that in 
the end the spiritual bond of the people will prove 
stronger than the tyranny of their oppressors. For a 
hundred years insurrections, followed by merciless 
repression, lawlessness, and violence, have been the 
order of the day. But Germany, Austria, and Russia, 
if they have killed Poland, have not been able to kill 
the Polish nationality. 



The destinies of the Polish nation have been very 
different and yet very similar in the three empires. 
In Austria the Poles enjoy practical autonomy, and 
more than once have played a leading part in the 
Austrian Parliament. But relegated, unfortunately, 
to a remote corner of the Austrian federation, sepa- 
rated from Prussia and Russia and Poland, mixed up 
with an enormous population of pauperized Jews, en- 
gaged in a religious and racial conflict with the Uniate 
Ruthenians, the Galician Poles lead a precarious 
political existence. 

In Russia the Poles continue to be oppressed by the 
bureaucracy of the Czar. They continue to be de- 
prived of the use of their language as well as of their 



152 The Anglo-German Problem 

religious and political rights, but the Russian persecu- 
tion has made the Poles not weaker but stronger. 
They have ceased to rise in open rebellion, but they 
oppose against their oppressors that passive resistance 
and determination which sooner or later must con- 
quer. To-day Russian Poland is perhaps the richest 
part of the Russian Empire, and when the day of 
freedom finally comes for the empire of the Czars, it is 
impossible to conceive that Polish autonomy can be 
withheld any longer. 

In Prussia the persecution of the Poles has been no 
less persistent. It has not assumed the violent forms 
which it takes in Russia; it has not led to wholesale 
massacres and bloody insurrections; it has borrowed 
the forms of the law ; it has called in the assistance of 
the Code. But it has been even more systematical, 
more methodical, more hypocritical, and equally 
odious, and it may be asserted that to-day the Prussian 
Government is even more hated by the Poles than the 
Russian Government. And certainly persecution has 
been as disastrous a failure in Prussia as it has been 
in Austria and Russia. So far from suppressing or re- 
pressing the Polish nationaHty, so far from depressing 
its vitality, the Prussian persecution has only stimu- 
lated it. 

The rapid increase of the Polish population has given 
alarm to the Prussian Government. Provinces which 
for generations had been German now become Polo- 
nized. Even Silesia sends several Polish members to 
the Reichstag. And the increase of the Polish popula- 
tion extends to the towns as well as to the country. 
The strict regulations of the Roman Catholic Church 
on mixed marriages still further favour the expansion 
of the Polish nationality. Wherever a Catholic Pole 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 153 

marries a German Protestant the second generation 
becomes Polish and Catholic. 

This sudden Polonization has been a severe blow 
to Prussian pride and a source of grave anxiety to 
Prussian patriotism. Were the Prussians going to be 
driven back in the East ? Were the frontier provinces, 
the marches of the empire; was Silesia, the hard-won 
prize of Frederick the Great ; was the very cradle of 
the Prussian monarchy to come into the possession 
of an alien and hostile race? Was the tragedy of 
Bohemia, which once was German and now has 
become Tchech, going to be repeated once more? 
And when the great day of reckoning comes be- 
tween the Slav and the Teuton, when the Pole is 
reconciled with his Russian brother and will com- 
bine against the common foe, will Prussian Poland 
be allowed to fall into the hands of Prussia's hered- 
itary enemies? 

For the Prussian rulers merely to propose such a 
question was already to solve it. The Polish nation 
was a danger to the Vaterland, therefore it must 
be crushed. The Prussians have always had an 
almost morbid sense of national patriotism, but they 
have always had little regard for the patriotism of 
others. 

In 1886 Bismarck decided to interfere with the 
natural law of increase, and to check the Polish 
infiltration. The problem was : What form ought the 
interference to take? How could the advance of the 
Polish population be arrested most efficiently and most 
rapidly? The Turkish method of Armenian massacre 
was not to be thought of. Wholesale transportation 
was equally out of the question. To restrict the 
Poles, like the Jews in Russia, within a certain area, 



154 The Anglo-German Problem 

within "the pale," was impracticable. To disperse 
the Poles all over the empire would only be to spread 
the disease, for owing to their gregarious habits the 
Poles would continue to form little islands of Slavonia. 
The inventive genius of despotism, which in Bismarck 
was never at fault, finally suggested to him a vast 
scheme of Government colonization, which was soon 
to be followed by compulsory expropriation. The 
Prussian Government was to acquire extensive estates, 
and German settlers, mostly Protestant, were to be 
established on them. And if sufficient land could not 
be acquired by free purchase the Polish landowner and 
the Polish peasant would be compulsorily expropriated. 
In 1886 the famous colonizing commission, the "An- 
siedelungs Commission, " was appointed. 

As the Poles were gradually to be dispossessed of 
their land, so they were to be deprived of their lan- 
guage. The use of Polish was prohibited in public 
meetings. The national language was soon ousted 
from the schools, and children were forbidden to 
pray to God in their mother tongue. 

Those methods might well be considered objection- 
able from a moral point of view, and injurious to the 
fair fame of German civilization. They might also 
be considered perilous from a political point of view. 
At a time when Prussia was honeycombed with Social- 
ism, it was a dangerous precedent to violate the rights 
of private property and to resort to wholesale ex- 
propriation. At a time when the religious passions 
roused by the Kulturkampf had gradually subsided, it 
might be dangerous to raise once more the Catholic 
question which in Poland was bound up with the lin- 
guistic and racial question. And finally, the unjust 
persecution of the Prussian Poles might rouse the four 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 155 

millions of Austrian Poles, whose weighty political 
influence might be used against Germany in the Triple 
Alliance. 

But if the methods used by Bismarck were doubtful 
and dangerous they were deemed necessary. Bis- 
marck, the great enemy of the Jesuits, never hesitated 
to adopt the principle which is supposed to be the 
lodestar of the Jesuit order: the end justifies the 
means. The end was sacred. The end was the sal- 
vation of Prussia; it safeguarded the future of the 
German race, which was imperilled by the Polish 
invasion. 

The fact that the colonization scheme was initiated 
by Bismarck prejudiced half of the educated Prussians 
in its favour. Bismarck had decreed a policy, therefore 
it must be good. At the end of his life Bismarck had 
become to his countrymen not only a great statesman, 
but the incarnate genius of statesmanship. In the 
Walhalla of national heroes he had become a demi-god. 
The worship of Bismarck was a religion even to 
Liberal politicians. 

It is difficult at the present day to understand how 
any critical student of German politics could have 
believed for one moment in the infallibility of Bis- 
marck's policy. Few statesmen have made more 
grievous mistakes. It is true that he achieved the 
one great object of his life, the unification of Germany ; 
but it has become increasingly doubtful whether that 
object would not have been attained without Bis- 
marck — if more slowly, all the more securely and 
permanently. One fact is certain: all the political 
schemes of Bismarck in the latter part of his life have 
been uniform failures. He wanted an understanding 
with Russia, yet he failed to prevent the Franco- 



156 The Anglo-German Problem 

Russian Alliance. He failed to foresee and to direct 
the colonial aspirations of his countrymen. He missed 
opportunities for expansion which were never to recur. 
He initiated the Kulturkampf , and was beaten by little 
Windhorst. He decreed the Sozialisten Gesetz, and 
his anti-Socialist laws only stimulated the growth of 
the Socialist Democratic Party. He made the German 
Empire, yet he was ignominously dismissed by the 
German Emperor; and he spent the last years of his 
life in carrying on a vindictive campaign, which 
undermined the prestige of the empire which he 
had built up. 

But the last legacy of Bismarck was also the most 
fatal. No other part of the Bismarckian policy shows 
more glaringly the fatal weakness of his methods. 
The anti-Polish legislation has operated for a quarter 
of a century. A civil war has raged, and has widened 
the gulf between the two races. Lawsuits without 
number have taught the people to defy the law. 
Little children have been taught to abhor the language 
of their oppressors. The Polish school strike of 
1907 is an unexampled phenomenon in modern history, 
and it lasted over a year. The Colonization Com- 
mission has spent over five hundred million marks. 
The price of the land has doubled. The landowner 
has been enriched. The peasant and the tax-bearer 
have been made poorer. But although poorer, the 
Polish peasant has retained the land of his father, and 
the area occupied by the Poles is actually larger than 
it was. And although poorer the Pole has become 
politically stronger. The Polish peasant has been 
taught virtues which hitherto were foreign to his 
nature. He has been educated by his oppressors into 
self-sacrifice and thrift, organization and discipline. 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 157 

The two races stand facing each other in irreconcilable 
opposition. A few concrete facts will illustrate better 
than any general statements the condition of affairs 
which at the beginning of the twentieth century 
prevailed in Prussian Poland. 

The following anecdote illustrates the close con- 
nection which exists in Prussia between the land 
question and political loyalty. It shows that, under 
the regime which to-day rules in PruSvSia, the owner 
of a large estate is as completely the master of the 
votes of his tenants as was the English landowner in 
the Golden Age of the "rotten boroughs": 

The owner of a vast estate, in whose boundaries 
was included one entire electoral district, assembled 
his tenants and dependants and promised them a 
banquet in the event of all the votes without a single 
exception being favourable to the Conservative can- 
didate. The banquet did not take place because, at 
the declaration of the polls, there was found that one 
vote, one single vote, had been given in favour of the 
Liberals. That vote had been given by the shrewd 
landowner himself in order to save the cost of the 
banquet ! 

In 1908 the following scene was enacted before 
a Prussian law court : 

** Accused Biedermann, how much does your 
patrimony amount to?" 

"I do not know exactly." 

"But approximately ? ' * 

"I am the most highly-assessed Polish taxpayer, 
and I pay into the Imperial German Treasury more 
than thirty thousand marks a year. " 

"You are a born German, as your name suggests, 
and late in life you have learned Polish? " 



158 The Anglo-German Problem 



"That is not true. My grandfather took part in 
the great Polish revolution." 

"Is it true that you buy the land of German land- 
owners in order to transfer it to men of your own 



race 



" I do not only buy German land, I also acquire and 
resell Polish property." 

"Is it true that you employ the services of German 
middlemen, whom you bribe to acquire German 
property?" 

"Exactly so. I do my best to imitate the German 
Government Colonization Commission, which hires 
Polish middlemen to expropriate my fellow-citizens." 

"You then confess that you take advantage of the 
good faith of the Germans?" 

* ' I would like to have all the millions which would 
be required to acquire the estates which are offered 
to me every day." 

"By what insidious means do you succeed in bribing 
your German agents, and making them a gang of 
traitors to their country?" 

"I have never sought them out. They come and 
ask me to employ them, and I accept them or refuse 
them according to the needs of the moment. The 
other day a major in the army presented himself to 
me, and offered to assist me in deceiving the Germans 
in the interest of the Polish nationality. By the way, 
that major was not a civilian!" 

" Is it true that you never resell an estate which you 
have acquired unless you are perfectly sure that it 
remains in Polish hands?" 

"Exactly so, Mr. President. That is my duty as a 
Pole."^ 

^ See the Italian work, Borgese's, Nuova Germania. 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 159 
II 

In this great Polish controversy, which continues 
to rage in the German Empire, it is important that 
we should closely and impartially examine the 
arguments adduced on both sides. 

An acute and sympathetic French observer, M- 
Huret, in the fourth volume of his great work on 
Germany, considers the question as hopelessly com- 
plicated and perplexing. If he means to say that the 
question has roused much bitterness and passion, 
that it is almost impossible to obtain reliable facts 
and statistics, then M. Huret is no doubt right. But 
if he means to suggest that the arguments for and 
against the Prussian policy are so evenly balanced that 
it is impossible to say which side is right, then we 
contend that M. Huret 's statement cannot be ac- 
cepted. We submit that the Polish question, so 
far from being complicated, is tragically simple. It is 
not necessary to be a statesman to see the main issue, 
and it was not necessary to be a statesman to foresee 
the event. The most ignorant citizen versed in the 
alphabet of political science must clearly see why the 
Polish experiment failed, and can draw the political 
and moral lessons implied in the failure. 

The Prussian argument has already been outlined, 
and can be summed up in a few clauses. The Poles 
have an instinctive hatred for the Prussians, and can- 
not be assimilated by any conciliatory methods. As 
they increase much more rapidly than the Prussians, 
as, indeed, to use the expression of Prince von Biilow, 
they breed like rabbits, some means must be used to 
check the Polish advance. It is essential to the 
integrity and preservation of the empire that the 



i6o The Anglo-German Problem 

eastern and south-eastern frontiers shall not fall into 
the hands of a disaffected race. In case of a war with 
Russia the disaffection of the Poles might determine 
the issue of the campaign. In the case of a revolution 
in Russia there might be a rebellion in Prussian 
Poland, the Prussian Poles might be induced to join 
their Russian brethren and attempt the reconstruction 
of the old Polish kingdom. 

The scheme of the Colonization Commission is 
claimed to be the only possible one that can ward off 
a great national danger. It is necessary for Prussia. 
It is also beneficial to the Poles. For any means, 
however unpleasant at first sight, which can hasten 
the assimilation of the races, is to be commended in 
the interest of the Poles themselves. They are an 
inferior race. They are not a KuUurvolk. It is a 
blessing to them to be compelled to adopt the higher 
culture of Germany. They have already prospered 
exceedingly under the firm but just rule of Prussia. 
They speak a dialect which isolates them from the 
civilization of the world, and it is a blessing to them 
to be compelled to speak the language of Goethe! 
As they are children, and ungrateful children, they 
must be treated like children; and no methods of 
mere persuasion, no methods short of actual compul- 
sion, will achieve the desirable consummation. 

The argument which justifies the oppression of the 
Poles in the name of a higher civilization is the old 
argument which in all ages and in all countries has 
been used to justify the appeal to brute force. In 
the name of a higher civilization the English in 
former days oppressed the Irish. In the name of 
a higher civilization the Russians to-day persecute 
the Jews and the Finns. In the name of a higher 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects i6i 

civilization the Magyars oppress the Croatians and 
the Roumanians. 

To any patriot the culture of his own country 
must needs be superior to that of any other. Above 
all, to a German there could be only one higher cul- 
ture. Has not the emperor proclaimed that he is 
*'the salt of the earth?" — "Wir sind das Salz der 
Erder 

Through the whole Polish controversy runs one 
Leitmotiv — the supreme contempt of the Prussian 
ruler for the Polish subject. And so persistently have 
the Poles been maligned, so entirely are we depending 
even for the bare facts of Polish history on the author- 
ity of their oppressors, that it is difficult to give an 
impartial statement of the Polish side of the case. 
But, if we try to rid ourselves of preconceptions, it is 
obvious that the Poles have been more sinned against 
than sinning. We do not believe in any inherent 
incapacity of the Poles to govern themselves. The 
Polish nation never had a chance. Poland was 
hemmed in on three sides by three mighty Powers. 
The anarchy of Poland has been the unavoidable con- 
sequence of its geographical position and of historical 
fatalities. Any strong Polish government, any drastic 
reform of the Liberum Veto Constitution, was im- 
possible, because neighbouring kingdoms were inter- 
ested in maintaining Polish misgovernment, and in 
fishing in its troubled waters. Religious peace was 
impossible, because neighbouring kingdoms were do- 
ing their utmost to sow religious dissension. 

And if the Polish nation made grievous mistakes, no 

nation has paid more dearly for them, or has retrieved 

them more heroically. No nation has been greater 

in misfortune. If the Poles do not deserve to be called 

zz 



i62 The Anglo-German Problem 

a KuUurvolk, we confess we do not know what are the 
criteria of a cultured people. Surely a nation which 
has produced great men in all branches of human 
acitivity, which has produced a Kopernic, a Sobieski, 
a Kosciusko, a Mickiewic, and a Chopin, is not a 
nation of mere barbarians. A nation which for a 
hundred and fifty years has asserted itself against 
overwhelming odds has proved its right to live. 
Although Prussian journalists are apt to indulge in 
an unworthy pun, to associate the "Slav" and the 
"slave, " a nation which by heroic rebellion or passive 
resistance has driven back the three most mighty 
military empires of Central Europe is not a nation of 
slaves, but a race of free men. The Prussian may have 
conscientious scruples against rebellion, he may 
passively submit to the dictation of the Junkers, and 
boast of his love of order and authority ; but there are 
impartial observers who would not be prepared to 
admit that the submissiveness of the Prussian is 
necessarily a criterion of a higher civilization. Rather 
would they be inclined to admit that the Pole who 
rebels against oppression and injustice stands, at 
least politically, on a higher level than the Prussian 
who accepts them. 

It is therefore impossible to agree with the argument 
of the claims of a higher civilization. Nor is it 
possible to agree with the argument drawn from the 
instinctive hostility of the Pole. If the Pole enjoyed 
the benefits of a just and free government, the proba- 
bility is that he would not hate his rulers. We are 
told that the Poles deserve to be persecuted because 
they are disaffected. Rather would we be prepared to 
argue that they are disaffected because they are per- 
secuted, and that they will become every day more 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 163 

hostile as the persecution becomes more persistent 
and more brutal. 

But even assuming the Prussian culture to be 
superior, even assuming the Poles to be animated with 
an instinctive hatred for their oppressors, the whole 
argument would still be irrelevant. The question is 
not whether the Pole hates the Prussian nor why he 
hates him, the question is not whether the oppressor is 
superior to the oppressed, the question is not whether 
the increase of the Polish population imperils the 
safety of the Prussian State, the ultimate question is 
whether the policy of oppression has been successful or 
can be successful. Surely it ought not to be necessary 
to remind Prussian publicists who pride themselves on 
being Realpolitiker — practical politicians — that a pol- 
icy can only be judged by its results. Let pedantic 
doctrinaires and university professors argue ad in- 
finitum on the justice or injustice of the case, on the 
merits of the Prussians and the demerits of the Poles, 
on the justification of the means or the sacredness of 
the end, the ultimate question is : Even assuming both 
the means and the end to be justified, are those means 
conducive to the end in view? 

Alas! the facts answer with crushing eloquence. 
The persecution has defeated its purpose. It has 
failed, and was bound to fail. The Prussian Govern- 
ment have aimed at taking away their land and their 
language from a people passionately attached to both. 
They have misunderstood the temper of the subject 
race. They have shown a total lack of sympathy and 
imagination. They have ignored moral forces. They 
have appealed to sordid interest. They have ignored 
sentiment and instinct. A liberal policy would pro- 
bably, in course of time, have won over the Poles. 



i64 The Anglo-German Problem 

At any rate they would have learned that a knowledge 
of German is more important than a knowledge of 
Polish, just as the Boers have been taught that Eng- 
lish is more important than Dutch. By prohibiting 
the Polish language they have made a love of the 
native language a matter of patriotic duty. By 
trying to deprive the Polish peasant of the land they 
have only made the native land dearer to him. 

The Englishman who studies the Polish question 
involuntarily thinks of Ireland. In both cases we 
meet with the same opposition of race and of religion. 
In both cases we find the same arguments used against 
a just and liberal policy. The Irishman had to be 
oppressed because the safety of Great Britain de- 
manded it, because the Saxon was superior to the Celt, 
because the Catholic was inferior to the Protestant. 
In both cases the same errors have been visited with 
the same punishment. But in comparing the two 
situations the English observer must remember that 
the parallel exists, not between the Prussian methods 
of to-day and the English methods of to-day, but 
between the Prussian methods of to-day and the 
English methods of the eighteenth century. So far 
are English and Prussian methods to-day from being 
in the least similar, that nothing illustrates more 
eloquently than Ireland and Poland the difference of 
English and Prussian politics, and the enormous ad- 
vance made by the English people in the science of 
government. 

For the methods used by the English in Ireland 
are to-day exactly the opposite of those used by 
Prussia in Poland. The English Government also 
have established "a Colonization Commission." 
But instead of using public money to deprive the 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 165 

Irish peasantry of their land, as the Prussians have 
done, the English Government have made an enorm- 
ous sacrifice to expropriate the English landlord and to 
transfer the soil to the Irish people. And the success 
which has attended the agrarian Irish policy initiated 
by Gladstone, and carried out by the Conservative 
Government, is the best proof of its wisdom, even as 
the failure which has attended the policy of the 
Prussian bureaucrats is the best proof of its folly. 



Ill 



Although apparently of purely local and technical 
interest, the Polish question deserves special and 
careful study, both for its far-reaching practical 
importance and for its profound philosophical interest. 

In practical politics the problem remains for German 
statesmen the insoluble riddle of the Sphinx, and 
although the Polish opposition only represents a small 
fraction of the Reichstag, yet those twenty members 
constitute a material addition to an already predomi- 
nant Centre Party, and contribute to the maintenance 
of its supremacy. In the event of a future war with 
Russia, or in the more probable and more immediate 
contingency of a change of political methods in the 
empire of the Czars, the Polish difficulty would be- 
come the vital question in the governance of the 
German Empire. If the concession of autonomy to 
Russian Poland, which was a favourite scheme of 
Alexander the First, were one day to be granted — and 
it must be granted if constitutional government is 
ever to become a reality — then the pressure for Home 
Rule in the Eastern Marches would become irresistible, 



i66 The Anglo-German Problem 

the union or the federation between Prussian Poland 
and Russian Poland would be achieved, and the old 
kingdom of Poland would be reconstituted. There lies 
the secret of the intimate solidarity and freemasonry 
between the despotism of Berlin and the despotism of 
Petersburg. There is the reason why William stood 
loyally by Nicholas the Second in his hour of trial. 
There also is one of the reasons why the Russian 
struggle for political freedom failed in 1905. Any 
volcanic outburst in the empire of the Romanovs 
would shake the throne of the HohenzoUern. 

But important as the Polish question is in the 
internal and foreign policy of the German Empire, 
to the foreign student it is mainly interesting because 
of the vivid light it throws on the methods of Prussian 
Government. Better than any other concrete illus- 
tration, it reveals the political conceptions of the 
German people, it reveals the fundamental differences 
between the English ideals and the German ideals 
of empire. It reveals the Prussian belief in force and 
in authority, the superstition of the State, the dis- 
belief in human freedom, the disregard of the rights 
of other nationalities. 

And better than any other study the Polish policy 
explains the failure of Germany as a colonizing Power. 
For colonization means sympathy and imagination, 
elasticity and the capacity of adaptation, and above 
all the capacity of assimilating alien elements. The 
German absolutely lacks that capacity. Whilst he 
is easily assimilated, whether he emigrates to France 
or to the United States, whilst he constitutes splendid 
ethnical material, he is incapable of assimilating him- 
self. He has not succeeded in absorbing either the 
Dane or the Pole or the Alsacian. A patriotic his- 



How Prussia Treats her Subjects 167 

torian, Professor Lamprecht, admits this fatal weak- 
ness, but he admits it only for the Northern German, 
and he considers that it has been and will be more and 
more the historic mission of the Austrian German to 
assimilate alien races and gain them over to the 
Deutschtum. Whoever has taken the trouble to 
study the conflict of nationalities in the Austrian 
Empire, which is called the ** whirlpool of Europe," 
will refuse to admit the theory of Professor Lamprecht. 
No more than the North German has the Austrian 
German assimilated the Magyar, or the Tchech, or 
the Pole, or the Ruthenian, or the Italian, or the 
Roumanian, or the Croatian. The struggle of 
nationalities is as bitter and as hopeless in the 
empire of the Habsburg as in the empire of the 
Hohenzollern. 

This conclusion, if justified by the facts, is of de- 
cisive importance for the future of Europe. If the 
Germans do not possess the capacity of colonizing — 
that is to say, of assimilating other races — the sooner 
they give up their Imperial ambitions the better for 
them. For these ambitions can only land in disastrous 
failure. The Germans have proved that they are a 
great people. But they have also proved that they are 
not an Imperial people. The Pan-German ideal is a 
delusion. The present German Empire has already 
reached its utmost capacity of expansion. The 
annexation of any new nationality would be like the 
inoculation of a poison into the German body politic. 
The conflicting ideals of Poles and Danes, Alsacians 
and Hanoverians, of Protestant and Catholic, of 
North and South, already render it increasingly 
difficult to carry on the business of government, and 
the unity of the empire can only be maintained arti- 



i68 The Anglo-German Problem 

ficially by autocracy and bureaucracy. Any further 
annexation, any further move in the direction of Pan- 
Germanism would bring about the disintegration and 
absorption of the German Empire. 



THE FIRST GERMAN GRIEVANCE 
Has England Taken Germany's Place in the Sun? 

I 

It is to-day a commonplace universally accepted in 
Germany that England has deliberately checked Ger- 
man expansion, or, to use a metaphor which has be- 
come of daily use in the popular Press, that *'she has 
taken Germany's place in the sun." 

This accusation obviously cannot apply to the 
commercial expansion of Germany. So far from being 
checked by England, German commercial expansion 
has been immensely stimulated by the liberal policy 
pursued by England. English Free Trade has been one 
of the most important contributory causes of German 
prosperity, England has been Germany's best colony; 
and not only has England thrown open her own 
markets to a rival whose competition in early days was 
not always fair and legitimate, but she has enabled 
Germany to trade on equal terms with practically 
every part of the British Empire. 

This indebtedness of Germany to English Free 
Trade is admitted, however reluctantly, by all German 
economists who have made a study of the subject. 
Professor von Schulze-Gaevernitz concedes that if 
England had repudiated Free Trade; if she had 

169 



I70 The Anglo-German Problem 

adopted Protection, or, rather, Fair Trade; if Mr. 
Chamberlain's poHcy, or even Mr. Balfour's policy, 
had triumphed, German trade would have received a 
formidable set-back. In the face of this admission by 
leading German economists, it is all the more strange 
how entirely the facts are distorted by the average 
German journalist; it is all the more strange that 
to-day the man in the street, forgetting what English 
Free Trade has done for the Vaterland, still considers 
England as the implacable enemy of German com- 
mercial and industrial development. 

If England has not checked German commercial 
expansion, but, on the contrary, has furthered it, can 
it be asserted that she has arrested her colonial ex- 
pansion? In Germany it is universally assumed that 
she has, and the assumption is now becoming part of 
the political creed of the average Teuton. We are 
told that every other great nation but Germany has 
been allowed to build up a colonial empire. Van- 
quished France has been magnanimously allowed by 
the victor to acquire most of her vast colonies since 
1870. Russia has expanded in the Near East and in 
the Far East, and, although she has met with formid- 
able disasters, she continues steadily to advance. In 
recent years England, although she declared herself 
long ago to be satiated and saturated, has annexed 
the South African Republics. Even so the United 
States have picked a quarrel with Spain in true Anglo- 
Saxon fashion, they have annexed Cuba, the Philip- 
pines, and Panama, and they are now coveting the 
mastery of the Pacific. Germany alone has been left 
with only a few outlying regions of the planet neglected 
by the other empires. She has had to be content with 
"light African soil" and with tropical marshes. And 



The First German Grievance 171 

this iniquitous treatment of Germany is due, it is 
contended, mainly to the persistent hostility with 
which England has opposed the most legitimate 
colonial aspirations of the German people. 

Generally there is a large element of truth in any 
widely spread popular preconception, but in the pre- 
sent case there is not one atom of reason in the German 
grievance. As we pointed out in the Preface of this 
book, England cannot have checked the colonial 
aspirations of Germany, for the simple reason that 
until quite recently those German aspirations did not 
exist. So little did colonial expansion bulk in the policy 
of the country that it was only in the beginfiing of the 
twentieth century that an independent German colonial 
office was instituted. Few outsiders realize that the 
first colonial secretary. Dr. Dernburg, was only 
appointed five years ago! 

It is true that for the last twenty years Germany 
has tried to make up with feverish haste for the cen- 
turies she has lost, and that since she has suddenly 
awakened to the possibilities of a colonial empire she 
has been confronted everywhere with the conflicting 
claims of England. But that is not because England 
is hostile to German expansion, but simply because 
England was already everywhere in possession, because 
England had had more luck, and probably also be- 
cause England had shown more energy, more enter- 
prise. Whilst German expansion begins with the 
beginning of the twentieth century, English expansion 
began at the end of the sixteenth — an advance of more 
than three hundred and fifty years. Surely it is un- 
fair to the English people to accuse them of hostility 
to the German people merely because in the sixteenth 
century Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, and the 



172 The Anglo-German Problem 

immortal mariners whose exploits we read of in 
Hakluyt's Voyages had the luck or the pluck to lay 
the foundation of Greater Britain, the "Oceana'' of 
future ages. 

There is a tide in the affairs of nations as there is in 
the affairs of individuals. Some nations come too 
early in the field. Thus Portugal and Spain con- 
quered their colonies in an age of political fanaticism 
and economic ignorance, and they lost their empire by 
their lust and their greed, their intolerance and their 
cruelty. 

Some nations, again, like England, have appeared 
in the nick of time. They have been favoured by 
historical circumstances as well as by their geographical 
position. England was able to learn from the failures 
of others. Her first colonizers were free men accus- 
tomed to self-government. She was allowed definitely 
to consolidate her empire whilst scientific discoveries 
were transforming the world. She was left almost 
alone in the field whilst a political revolution diverted 
and absorbed for a quarter of a century the other 
Powers of Europe. 

And, again, there are nations who have come too 
late. Of this fact there is no more striking instance 
than the tardy appearance of the German Empire. 
Although a far-sighted German pioneer, like Frederick 
List, who had served his political apprenticeship in 
the United States, clearly pointed the way seventy- 
five years ago, Germany was unable to enter in the 
race for empire because she was not ready. 

What makes the case of Germany more tragic is 
that the German people cannot be allowed to blame 
destiny alone or untoward circumstances. They 
must also blame themselves, and that is what few 



The First German Grievance 173 

Germans to-day are prepared to admit. Even after 
1870 Germany might still have built up a magnificent 
empire, but she let the opportunity slip, and the 
opportunity will never recur again. Even after 1870 
Germany might have carved for herself extensive 
possessions in Africa and Asia. She was the para- 
mount Power in European politics, and she might 
easily have achieved what France, what even little 
Belgium, were enabled to achieve. The Conference 
of Berlin which in 1884 partitioned Africa might have 
registered a German colonial triumph, as the Treaty 
of Berlin in 1878 registered her political triumph. 
Germany surrendered the Congo Free State without 
foreseeing its future. She surrendered Indo-China 
and Madagascar to France. In the 'eighties German 
emigrants were still leaving the Vaterland in hundreds 
of thousands. If at that time the tide of German 
emigration had been systematically directed towards 
South Africa, the South African Commonwealth to- 
day would have been German. It is a fact that at the 
end of the nineteenth century the ambitions of the 
German Empire definitely turned to the Dutch 
Republics, and the late German Ambassador in Lon- 
don, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, declared, as 
German Foreign Secretary, that the independence 
of the Transvaal was a German interest. 

How, then, shall we account for this extraordinary 
blindness to the possibilities of the future in so ambi- 
tious and intelligent a race as the German people? 
How shall we explain the contrast between their splen- 
did commercial success and their colonial failures? 

The reasons are manifold, and we would suggest 
the following as specially worthy of consideration. It 
will be found that none of these reasons for German 



174 The Anglo-German Problem 

failure in colonization have anything to do with 
English hostility. 

In the first place, German Imperialists ought to 
lay the responsibility upon German statesmen, and 
especially upon their favourite hero, Bismarck. The 
more we critically examine Bismarck's achievements, 
the more we realize that he was a statesman of the old 
school, the school of despotism, the school which 
believed in brute force and not in the display of the 
free individual energies of man. Bismarck was a 
realist and a materialist. He had much less imagin- 
ation than he is often credited with. He did not in- 
dulge, like Talleyrand, in visions of a distant future, 
in dreams of a German Oceana. To him sufficient for 
the day were the struggles thereof. So little did he 
believe in any colonial policy that he deliberately 
induced France once more to embark in the race for 
empire. He tempted her to go to Tunis, to Morocco, 
to the Far East. If a considerable part of the French 
Empire in Africa and Asia has not become German, 
the Germans ought not to blame the greed of the French 
people, but rather the short-sightedness of the great 
Chancellor. Bismarck lost the reality for the shadow. 
Bismarck's ambition was, to control the Continent, to 
establish a Napoleonic Empire in Europe, with the 
result that to-day all the non-German Powers of the 
West are leagued against the Vaterland. 

There is a second political reason for the colonial 
failure of Germany. At the critical time when 
England, France, and Russia were building up and 
consolidating their colonial empires, Bismarck and the 
German people were still absorbed by religious strug- 
gles and by civil dissensions, and were paying the 
penalty of a blundering home policy. The Iroi\ 



The First German Grievance 175 

Chancellor was hurling his Jesuiten Gesetz against the 
Ultramontanes, and his Sozialisten Gesetz against the 
Labour Party. Mighty moral and economic forces 
were being set free, and Bismarck, who did not believe 
in moral forces, fondly imagined that the old brutal 
methods would be sufficient to hold them in check. 
He fondly imagined that he would triumph over 
Catholicism and Socialism by throwing into prison a 
few hundred old monks and a few thousand miserable 
working men. For ten years after the Franco-German 
War, Bismarck was engaged in a deadly conflict with 
the "black international'* of the priests, and the 
''red international" of Social Democracy. At this 
distance of time we can see that those conflicts were a 
lamentable waste of national energy, and that if Bis- 
marck had pursued a systematic colonial policy, in 
grossem Stil, for instance in South Africa, he might 
on the one hand have relieved the political pressure 
of the Vaterland; and on the other hand he might 
have secured the co-operation of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church, and of their wonderful missionary 
organization. 

There can be no doubt, therefore, that Bismarck 
was partly accountable. He let great opportunities 
pass by unheeded. But again we cannot impute the 
blame to one statesman, however powerful, no more 
than we can make blind fate responsible, and this 
brings us to a third reason accounting for Germany's 
failure. The final responsibility must be traced to 
the political and moral shortcomings of the German 
people themselves. After all, successful colonization, as 
distinguished from the old predatory Imperialism, is 
the fruit of political freedom, of individual initiative, 
of a spirit of adventure and enterprise, and until 



176 The Anglo-German Problem 

recently the German people were lacking in every one 
of those qualities. 

We often hear it said that England has both colonies 
and colonists, that France has colonies but no colon- 
ists, and that Germany has colonists but no colonies. 
The general statement that Germany is a country 
rich in colonists is only partially true. Germany is 
not really a nation of colonists in the exact sense of the 
word, for a colonist is a man who settles in a new land, 
and a man who settles in a new land must he a pioneer 
and an adventurer. Now the German does not like to 
settle in a new land; he is so accustomed to passive 
obedience that he does not succeed in those new 
countries where initiative is the first quality required. 
He generally prefers to go to old settled countries, 
like the United States, or Brazil, which have already 
an organized government. The typical German is no 
Robinson Crusoe. He is even less of a pioneer than 
the Frenchman. Although France in popular estima- 
tion is supposed not to produce human material for 
colonies, as a matter of fact she has produced, even in 
our generation, a far more abundant crop than Ger- 
many of explorers and adventurers. 

In this connection it would be interesting to com- 
pare what has been done by Germany and what has 
been done by France and England in the exploration 
of our planet. I have no doubt that a searching and 
impartial investigation would prove that in the long 
and glorious roll of Polar, African, and Asiatic ex- 
plorers, Germany only occupies a secondary place. 
Neither Stanley nor Livingstone, Nansen nor Shackle- 
ton, Bonvalot nor Przejalski, Lamy nor Marchand 
belong to the Vaterland. 

We would suggest a fourth reason, mainly economic, 



The First German Grievance 177 

of German failure, and it is so obvious that we need 
not dwell upon it. Modern colonization, with its vast 
schemes, its building of railways, demands very 
considerable risk, and an abundant supply of capital. 
Unfortunately, even after the Franco-German War, 
and notwithstanding the French millions, Germany 
was still comparatively poor, and wanted all her 
available capital to develop her industries at home. 
Although it is universally assumed that the war en- 
riched the Germans, as a matter of fact, three years 
after the annus mirahilis the new empire found itself 
on the verge of national bankruptcy. And it is not to 
be wondered at, that in those early days of her indus- 
trial expansion Germany should not have risked her 
scanty resources in any of the great ventures which 
were opening new continents to Western civilization. 
And last but not least, we would suggest as a 
fifth reason that colonization demands considerable 
political experience, and demands especially that kind 
of experience which is acquired by a long historical 
tradition, and by the practice of free institutions. It 
is this political experience in which Germany was and 
still is to-day signally deficient. And it is this expe- 
rience which has largely made the success of English 
colonization. That experience has been acquired by 
England at the cost of persistent and disastrous fail- 
ures. It was because England treated the American 
colonies harshly and unjustly that she lost the United 
States. But in the course of generations England 
learned her lessons, and it is because she did learn from 
her own bitter experience the wisdom of a generous 
and liberal policy that she saved French Canada in 
the nineteenth century, and that in our own days she 
saved Dutch South Africa. 



178 The Anglo-German Problem 

II 

It is in the light of the foregoing considerations that 
we must form our judgment on the German colonial 
grievance. After what has been said, we need look 
for no extraneous reasons to account for the break- 
down of German colonization, and we shall cease to 
wonder if a nation, otherwise so eminently successful 
in developing her trade and industry, should have 
done so little in "bearing the white man's burden." 

It is not necessary to make more than a passing 
reference to German enterprise in the Cameroons, in 
South- West and in East Africa, because that enter- 
prise has been mainly a fiasco. The "dark continent " 
has verily been to the Germans an ill-fated continent. 
The ruinous wars with the Herreros, the disclosures in 
the Reichstag on East African mismanagement, the 
failure and prosecution of two famous explorers, tried 
before the German High Court for alleged atrocities, 
are only a few of the many unpleasant episodes in the 
history of the African dependencies. And it can 
hardly be said that the recent concessions obtained in 
the French Congo are an adequate compensation for 
the vanished dream of a Greater Germany under the 
Southern Cross. 

Other German schemes of colonial expansion have 
not been more successful. Germany had set her 
hopes on a new empire in China. It was that prospect 
which induced her to join with Russia in preventing 
the Japanese from getting a footing on the Chinese 
continent after the Chino-Japanese War, and which 
also induced her to defend the integrity of China. And 
having guarded against Japan the integrity of China, 
Germany initiated the partition and established herself 



The First German Grievance 179 

at Kiao-Chau in the Shantung. This fateful step 
led to all the later complications and catastrophes. It 
led to the occupation of Wei-hai-wei by England, and 
of Port Arthur by Russia. It led directly to the Boxer 
rising against the foreign invader. It led indirectly 
to the Russian expansion in Manchuria, and to the 
Russo-Japanese War. 

Many significant incidents indicated at the time of 
the Boxer rising the importance which Germany at- 
tributed to her Chinese schemes. German publicists 
proclaimed that the future of Germany lay in China. 
The German Emperor preached a national crusade 
denouncing the Yellow Peril, presumably to conciliate 
the Chinese people. The German Government took 
the lead in repressing the rebellion. The Emperor 
dispatched his own brother as well as his favourite 
soldier, Marschall von Waldersee. It was Waldersee 
who assumed the Command-in-Chief of the European 
contingents. And also presumably in order to con- 
ciliate his future Chinese subjects, the Kaiser gave 
solemn instructions that the Chinese rebels were to 
be given no quarter. German hopes ran high during 
those eventful months, and the German Government 
seemed determined to make the most of the assassina- 
tion of its ambassador. The breaking up of China 
seemed imminent. The unexpected happened. Japan 
forestalled both Russia and Germany, and the triumph 
of the Japanese armies put an end to German ambi- 
tions. And since Moukden and Tsushima, another 
formidable competitor has arisen in the Pacific, more 
favourably situated, and with greater chances of 
success. Whether the United States will eventually 
control the Western Pacific shores, and divide China 
into spheres of influence, or whether the prize will 



i8o The Anglo-German Problem 

fall to Russia or Japan is uncertain. But one fact is 
certain : Shantung will never become the nucleus of a 
German dependency. 

Together with China, South America at the end of 
the nineteenth century attracted German ambitions, 
and, so far, Southern Brazil has been the most success- 
ful field for German colonization. The degenerate, 
half-caste Brazilian is not a match for the energetic 
Teuton, and the country is immensely wealthy, and 
offers infinite possibilities. Although the semi- 
tropical climate does not seem favourable to a North- 
ern race, several hundreds of thousands of German 
colonists have settled in the Southern provinces, and 
when one considers that the French-Canadians were 
only fifty thousand in the eighteenth century, and 
are now two millions, a patriotic German may reason- 
ably hope that the present settlement might eventually 
have grown into a vigorous Teutonic offshoot. 

But here again the fatal word "too late" is written 
on the wall. The Monroe Doctrine opposes an in- 
superable obstacle to German expansion. The Ger- 
man Government may have thought at one moment 
of challenging the doctrine, and the significant fact 
that already in 1902 Germany put in a claim for a 
harbour on the west coast of Morocco (Mogador, or 
Agadir) may have been connected with ulterior 
designs on South America. But in the meantime 
Admiral Mahan and Roosevelt had converted the 
Yankee to a policy of aggressive Imperialism, and 
to-day, with the imminent opening of the Panama 
Canal, the risks have become too great for any 
European Power to interfere with the United States 
and South America. A war with the American Com- 
monwealth would be too heavy a price to pay for a 



The First German Grievance i8i 

German colony in Brazil, for even if successful it 
could not be ultimately retained against both North 
and South Americans. And therefore German}^ must 
be resigned to leave the United States in undisputed 
control of the American continent. 



Ill 



From whatever point of view we examine the 
subject, we find that the accusation that England 
has checked German colonial expansion is totally 
unfounded. There may have been diplomatic com- 
plications, but considering the enormous surface of 
possible friction, and considering that England was 
everywhere in possession, the astonishing fact is, that 
the differences should not have been more numerous 
or more serious. And certainly there has been no ill- 
will on the part of England, nor any disposition 
to hinder the settlement of outstanding difficulties, 
whether in the case of Heligoland, in East Africa, 
in West Africa, or in Samoa. And the causes which we 
have analyzed at the beginning of this chapter are 
amply sufficient to account for the comparative failure 
of German ambitions, without making it necessary 
to assume any Machiavelian plotting of English 
diplomacy. The sooner the German people realize 
those simple facts the better it will be for the promo- 
tion of a more cordial understanding with her English 
rivals. The sooner they realize their shortcomings, 
and the sooner they "put their house in order," the 
better will be the prospects of her present colonial 
possessions. 



THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY AND GERMAN 
EXPANSION IN THE NEiVR EAST^ 



Most readers who have followed us in our brief 
examination of the various attempts of German 
colonization in South America, in South Africa, and in 
China, and who compare the paucity of the results 
with the greatness of the effort, and especially with 
the magnitude of the aspirations, will no doubt have 
joined us in our conclusion, shared by the Germans 
themselves, that, on the whole, German colonization 
has been a failure. But that historical generalization 
demands a very important qualification. For in 

^ The present chapter is largely based on personal investiga- 
tions pursued during two recent journeys in the Near East and in 
the Balkan States. A vast literature has sprung up on the 
Baghdad Railway, testifying to the large place it holds in the 
preoccupations of European diplomacy. I would especially draw 
attention to the works of Valentine Chirol, The Middle East; Dr. 
Rohrbach, Die Bagdadhahn; Rudolf Martin, ihid.; the works 
of Charles Loiseau, L'Equilibre adnatiqiie; Rene Henry, La Ques- 
tion d'Orient; Des Monts de Bolieme au Golfe Persique; and last, 
but not least, to the remarkable volumes of Andre Ch^radame, 
who, although too much of an alarmist, has done more than any 
man living to open the eyes of European opinion to the dangers of 
German policy. (See also articles by Dr. Dillon in the Contem^ 
porary Review, and by IMr. Garvin in the Fortnightly.) 

182 



German Expansion in the East 183 

passing in review the history of German colonial 
enterprise, I have purposely left out one vast region 
where, if not German colonization, at least German 
expansion has been a conspicuous success. Indeed the 
achievements of Germany in that region have been so 
momentous, opening up such far-reaching visions of 
world empire, that they more than counterbalance 
her disappointments in other parts. And for that 
reason, when we estimate the final and aggregate 
results of thirty years of German colonization, it 
would be as absurd to speak of German failure as it 
would be to speak of the failure of English coloniza- 
tion in the eighteenth century. It is true that in the 
eighteenth century England lost the United States, 
but she gained Canada and India. In the twentieth 
century Germany lost China and Morocco, but she 
gained Asia Minor; she has gained the Protectorate 
over the Turkish Empire. 

In tracing the development of German expansion 
in Asia Minor, we shall find one additional proof of 
the absurdity of the German grievance which we 
discussed in a previous chapter, that England has 
pursued a policy systematically hostile to Germany. 
We shall see that in the case of the Baghdad Railway 
not only have the Powers of the Entente Cordiale done 
nothing to oppose Germany, but that French states- 
men have again and again promoted German claims, 
and that England in her desire to conciliate her neigh- 
bours has betrayed some vital Imperial interests, and 
has allowed Germany to assume a formidable position, 
threatening both Egypt and India, a position from 
which she is not likely to retreat, and yet from which 
she will have to retreat if an armed conflict is to be 
avoided. 



1 84 The Anglo-German Problem 

II 

When the history of the latter part of the nineteenth 
century comes to be written, few events will prove to 
have had greater intrinsic importance and to have 
produced more far-reaching results than the conven- 
tions of November 27, 1889, and of January 16, 1902/ 
between his Imperial Majesty the Sultan of Turkey 
and the German company of the Anatolian railways, 
granting to the aforesaid company an extension of 
their railways from Konia to the Persian Gulf. That 
convention marks a new era in the foreign policy of the 
German Empire. By that convention all the other 
great Powers were gradually to be eliminated from the 
Near East; by that convention Germany has secured 
by one stroke of the diplomatic pen what England and 
Russia have striven for generations to attain — and a 
great deal more ! By that concession, not only was 
Germany destined to obtain in the near future a 
complete economic control over the Turkish domin- 
ions, which must sooner or later lead to a political 
protectorate; not only did Germany add to her sway 
the ancient empire of Semiramis and Nebuchadnezzar, 
of Cyrus and Haroun al Raschid, but there v/as also 
created thereby a situation fraught with permanent 
danger to the peace of Europe, a constant menace to 
all the Powers interested in those vast and wealthy 
regions, and, eventually, a complete readjustment, in 
favour of Germany, of the balance of world power. ^ 

^ See Ch6radame, p. 29. The text of that secret convention 
has been first published by M. Ch^radame, and translated by the 
Novoie Vremya (see Ch^radame, p. 69) . 

^ See the brilHant paper of Dr. Dillon on the " Germanization 
of Europe" in the Contemporary Review j April, 1906. 



German Expansion in the East 185 

That a mere engineering undertaking like the 
Baghdad Railway should be pregnant with such 
momentous consequences can only be strange to those 
who are ignorant of the political geography of Asia 
Minor, and who are not conversant with the enormous 
part played by railways in the colonial and foreign 
policy of our age. There was a time when the occu- 
pation and penetration of a foreign country took place 
by slow and peaceful steps — first the missionary, then 
the trader, then the consul, then the flag. Those were 
the antiquated British methods. To-day the railway 
engineer seems to be more and more the deus ex 
machina of colonization, and the soldier is almost 
certain to follow in his wake. Whether we consider 
the Chinese railways or the trans-Caspian or the 
trans-Siberian railways, colonization does follow the 
lines of communication; and the lines of communica- 
tion are not merely commercial, but mainl}^ political 
and strategical. Nor must we forget that in a semi- 
barbarous State like Asia Minor or Turkey, where 
there are few cities and where other routes are unsafe, 
the railways, by means of rates and freights and 
tariffs, practically regulate the whole trade and con- 
trol the whole finances of the country. 

We have just mentioned the trans-Siberian Railway, 
and we have done so advisedly. It is impossible to 
consider the Baghdad Railway without thinking of 
Mr. Witte's great achievement. There is a most 
striking analogy between them. The German under- 
taking is, like the Russian, on a scale of such magni- 
tude that it must inevitably create a situation which it 
is almost beyond the power of statesmanship to con- 
trol. Both undertakings are instruments of pene- 
tration into regions which are within the sphere of 



1 86 The Anglo-German Problem 

influence of the great Powers of Europe. As in the 
famous poem of Goethe, in both cases forces have been 
set loose which no spell of the political magician can 
set at rest again. The trans- Mesopotamian Railway, 
when it is completed, and if Germany succeeds in her 
policy, will play in the Near East the same ominous 
part which the trans-Siberian played in the Far East ; 
with this important difference, however, that whilst 
the Far Eastern conflict involved only one European 
Power and one Asiatic Power, the Near Eastern 
conflict, if it breaks out, must needs involve all the 
European Powers, must force the whole Eastern 
Question to a crisis, and, once begun, cannot be ter- 
minated until the map of Europe and Asia shall be 
reconstructed. 

This, and nothing less, is implicitly contained in the 
Baghdad Railway. The sooner our earnest attention 
is concentrated on the mountain ranges of the Taurus, 
and the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates, the 
better it will be for the peace of the world. Dark 
clouds are gathering over the ruins of Nineveh and 
Babylon, which may burst into a political storm and 
cataclysm such as the world has not seen since Napo- 
leonic times. Hitherto England has followed, with 
regard to the Baghdad Railway, the most dangerous 
of all policies, the policy of "drift." The critical 
moment is drawing near when the Baghdad Railway 
will emerge from the tunnels of the Taurus Mountains 
and will work south towards the Persian Gulf and the 
British sphere of influence. Let England study the 
situation calmly and coolly whilst it is time; she will 
then be prepared to speak with no uncertain voice and 
to make a determined attempt in order to ward off 
the consequences. 



German Expansion in the East 187 
III 

We were perhaps not quite correct in stating that 
the Baghdad Railway concession marks a new era in 
the foreign policy of Germany. It marks rather an 
end than a beginning. It is the successful termination 
of a long series of diplomatic moves, the accomplish- 
ment of long-cherished ambitions. For forty years 
Germany had been seeking an outlet for her teeming 
population and her expanding industries. Hitherto 
emigration had seemed to be a sufficient outlet and a 
sufficient source of strength. But as Germany was 
becoming more and more the controlling power of the 
Continent, she refused to be contented with sending 
out millions of her sons, who, as mere emigrants to 
foreign countries, were lost to the Vaterland.^ How 
different would the power of Germany have been, 
German Imperialists were ever repeating, if the 
20,000,000 Teutons who have colonized the United 
States, or Brazil, or Argentina, and have been ab- 
sorbed and Americanized and Saxonized, had settled 
in territories under the Imperial flag. 

And thus Pan-Germanists have been looking to- 
wards every part of the horizon. They have first 
looked to the north and the north-west, and they 
have reflected that the Rhine ought to belong to the 
Vaterland; that Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Ant- 
werp are the natural German harbours; that Denmark, 
Holland, and Flemish Belgium are the outposts of 
Germany for the transit commerce of Europe, and 
that all these outposts ought to be included either in 
an economic Zollverein or in a political confederation.^ 

^To-day the immigration into Germany exceeds the emigration. 
' In Justus Perthes's widely scattered Alldeutscher Atlas edited 



1 88 The Anglo-German Problem 

But Germany wisely realized that those northern 
ambitions would meet with absolute resistance on the 
part of other Powers, that she was not yet strong 
enough to defy that resistance, and that this fulfilment 
of her aspirations must be postponed until she was 
prepared to fight for the mastery of the sea. In the 
meantime, she contented herself with peacefully 
annexing the commerce of the Flemish and Dutch 
ports, with building up a mercantile and a war navy, 
with advocating the historical maritime philosophy of 
Captain Mahan, and with repeating on every occasion 
the famous note of warning: " Unsere Zukunft ist auf 
dem Wasser." Biding her time, and following the 
line of least resistance, Germany for the last twenty 
years therefore extended steadily towards the south 
and towards the east. Towards the south she saw 
two decaying empires, Austria-Hungar}^ and Turkey, 
which seemed to be a natural prey for her political and 
commercial ambitions: two conglomerates of hostile 
races which are waiting for a master. Towards the 
east she saw one of the most ancient seats of human 
civilization, a huge and rich territory, which is the one 
great country, in close proximity to Europe, which is 
still left unoccupied and undeveloped. On those 
three empires Germany set her heart, and with the 
method and determination which always characterize 
her she set to work. And with an equally characteris- 
tic spirit this gigantic scheme of commercial and 
political absorption of three empires, from the Upper 
Danube to the Persian Gulf, was being explained away 



by Paul Langhans, and published by the AUdeutscher Verband, 
both Holland and Flemish Belgium are considered and "col- 
oured" as an integral part of the future German Empire. 



German Expansion in the East 189 

and justified by an all- comprehensive watchword : the 
''Drang nach Osten.'' It was only in response to this 
irresistible call and impulse, this Drang and pressure, 
it was only to obey an historical mission, that the 
Teuton was going to regenerate the crumbling empires 
of Austria, of Turkey, and of Asia Minor. 

In the first place, let us consider for one moment 
the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. It is now fifty 
years since, through the battle of Sadowa, Austria- 
Hungary was ousted from the German Confederation. 
The same reasons which impelled Protestant Prussia 
to drive Catholic Austria from the Germanic Con- 
federation are still in large measure subsisting to-day, 
and I do not think that the Hohenzollern has any 
intention of forcing the Habsburg into the Confedera- 
tion again, merely to obey the behests of the Pan- 
Germanists. Prussia has no interest whatever in 
reopening the ancient dualism of North and South, in 
re-establishing the two poles and antipodes, Berlin 
and Vienna. As a matter of a fact, ever since 1870, 
Austria-Hungary has been far more useful to German 
aims in her present dependent condition than if she were 
an integral part of the Confederation. In continental 
politics as well as in colonial politics, a disguised 
protectorate may be infinitely preferable to virtual 
annexation. The protectorate of Tunis has given far 
less trouble to France than the colony of Algeria. 
And for all practical interests and purposes, Austria- 
Hungary has become a German dependency. She 
has been drawn into the orbit of the Triple Alliance. 
She follows the political fortunes of the predominant 
partner. She almost forms part of the German ZoU- 
verein, in that her tariffs are systematically favourable 
to her northern neighbour. But above all, Austria- 



I90 The Anglo-German Problem 

Hungary renders to Germany the inestimable service 
both of ''civilizing'' — that is, of ''Germanizing'' — the 
inferior races, the Slavs, and of keeping them in check. 
It is a very disagreeable and difficult task, which Ger- 
many infinitely prefers to leave to Austria rather than to 
assume herself. And it is a task for which, as Pro- 
fessor Lamprecht, the national historian, is compelled 
to admit, the Austrian German seems far more quali- 
fied than the Prussian German. And Germany can 
thus entirely devote herself to her world ambitions, 
whilst Austria is entirely absorbed by her racial 
conflict — for the King of Prussia ! 

For the last twenty-five years the process of Ger- 
manizing has been going on without interruption. 
A bitter war of races and languages is being waged 
between the Austrian German and the Magyar, 
between the Teuton and the Slav. Of the Slav, the 
Austrian Teuton wants to make his political slave. To 
him "Slav" and ''slave" are synonymous words; 
and when we consider that the Slavs are disunited in 
language and religion, and that they hate each other 
almost as cordially as they hate the Niemets; and 
when we further consider that behind the ten millions 
of Austrian Germans there will be sixty-five millions 
of other Germans to support them, whilst the Catholic 
Tchechs and Poles can only fall back on the support 
of abhorred and heretical Russia, there is every reason 
to fear that the Slav must eventually come under the 
economic and political control of the Austrian German 
— that is to say, ultimately under the influence of the 
German Empire. 

But it is not only the Slavs of the Austrian Empire 
that are threatened by German absorption; that ab- 
sorption has rapidly extended to the Slav States of 



German Expansion in the East 191 

the Balkan Peninsula. On the south as well as on the 
north of the Danube, Austria has been used as the 
** cat's-paw," or, to use the more dignified expression 
of Emperor William, as the "loyal Sekundanf oi the 
Hohenzollern. The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
in defiance of the Treaty of Berlin, was the beginning 
of that Austrian "Drang nach Osten'' policy, the next 
object of which is the possession of the Gulf of Salo- 
nica, and the ultimate object of which is the control 
of Constantinople. 

In a striking article published in the Nineteenth 
Century J 1905, Sir Harry Johnston gave definite 
expression to the Eastern aspirations of the Hohen- 
zollern, and the political programme he outlines is 
to-day the programme of the majority of thoughtful 
and far-seeing Germans: 

The German Empire of the future will be, or should be, a 
congeries of big and little States, semi-dependent in many re- 
spects, bound together by allegiance to a supreme emperor, by a 
common customs union, an army and navy for the defence of their 
mutual interests. This empire will include the present German 
kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and republics, and, in addition, 
a kingdom of Hungary, kingdoms of Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria, 
principalities of Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, a republic of 
Byzantium, a sultanate of Anatolia, a repubHc of Trebizond, an 
emirate of Mosul, a dependency of Mesopotamia; the whole of 
this mosaic bound together by bands and seams of German 
cement. Wherever there are vacant land and a suitable climate 
German colonies will be established, as they have been in Transyl- 
vania and Syria (as also in Southern Russia and in the Caucasus). 
The territories of this German League would thus stretch from 
Hamburg and Holstein on the Baltic and on the North Sea to 
Trieste and the Adriatic, to Constantinople and the ^gean, to 
the Gulf of Alexandretta, to the Euphrates and the frontiers of 
Persia. 

There might still be a Sultan of Turkey, but he would reside 



192 The Anglo-German Problem 

at some appropriate capital in Mohammedan Asia Minor, with a 
German resident at his court, and, at first, with Germans to 
teach him sound finance and good government. In joining this 
German League, Austria-Hungary, Bohemia, Roumania, Bul- 
garia, Servia, Montenegro would enjoy the same freedom and 
independence as are attributed at the present day to the kingdom 
of Saxony or the kingdom of Bavaria. The emperor of this great 
confederation might be a German and a Hohenzohern, and he 
might fix his residence at Berlin or at Vienna ; but that would be 
merely because at the present day the kingdom of Prussia is 
superior in population and power to any one of the States 
mentioned as forming part of this League. 

Perhaps the beneficent work of Rome, which was shattered 
by the uprising of Mohammed, may be again rebuilt upon a surer 
basis. Britain and Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal 
ma}'' band together to do the work of the Western empire; while 
Germany and her Magyar, Slav, Ruman, and Greek allies restore 
the edifice which Constantine founded at Byzantium. Some of 
my readers may live long enough to see William the Second or 
Frederick the Fourth crowned in Saint Sophia, Emperor of the 
Nearer East. 



To pave the way to the realization of these glorious 
aspirations, Austria has used every means to justify 
her intervention; she has consistently followed the 
traditional principle of the Habsburg monarchy of 
''divide ut imperes^ She has prevented all under- 
standing between Servia and Bulgaria. With regard 
to Servia it is not too much to say that, politically as 
well as economically, she is completely in the grip of 
her Austrian neighbour, and any one conversant with 
the history of contemporary Servia knows that 
Austrian intrigues are at the root of all the internal 
troubles of that distracted country. I remember the 
present King of Servia, whilst discussing with me in 
1905 the Austro-Servian relations, saying in a tone of 
melancholy resignation : ' * Que voulez-vous; nous devons 



German Expansion in the East 193 

passer sous lesfourches caudines de VA utriche. ' ' Austria 
has exploited for her own ends the dynastic quarrel 
between the Obrenovitch and the Karageorgevitch. 
King Milan openly followed the Austrian policy which 
was the cause of his fall. It was Austria that made 
him declare a fratricidal war against Bulgaria. It 
has been, and still is, the systematic policy of Austria 
to prevent any railways being built by Servia, which 
might provide outlets for her trade — for instance, on 
the Adriatic Sea — and which would make her in- 
dependent of Austria. At present, as eighty per cent, 
of Servian exports must go into Hungary, Servia is 
absolutely at the mercy of her northern neighbour, as 
recent events have only too clearly shown. In the 
year of grace 1906 Servia and Bulgaria concluded a 
Zollverein : as a preliminary step to that future federa- 
tion desired by all far-sighted patriots in the Balkans, 
and as a preliminary step to an entente cordiale on the 
Macedonian Question. As soon as this Zollverein was 
declared, Austria broke off the negotiations for re- 
newal of the Treaty of Commerce with Servia. There 
came a deadlock. Servian farmers were threatened 
with ruin. Servia had to submit to the terms of the 
Austrian Government, which compelled her to buy 
her chief imports, including guns and ammunition, in 
the Austrian markets, and which made Servia more 
than ever into a vassal State of the Austrian Empire. 

It may be objected that the triumph of Austrian 
Germany, acting as the vanguard and ''loyal Sekun- 
dant'' of the Hohenzollern, and bringing under Teu- 
tonic control all the Slav races on both sides of the 
Danube, must still take many years for its realization. 
That may be so; but certainly the same objection 
cannot be made with regard to Turkey. The absorp- 
13 



194 The Anglo-German Problem 

tion of Turkey is not a distant dream, it is very nearly 
an accomplished fact. Twenty-five years ago Ger- 
many declared she had no political stake in the affairs 
of Turkey. As recently as the 'seventies, Bismarck 
proclaimed in Parliament that the Eastern Question 
was not worth the loss of one Pomeranian soldier. ' 

To-day Germany is well-nigh supreme on the Bos- 
phorus. She started by sending military instructors, 
amongst whom was the famous general von der Goltz 
Pasha, and by reorganizing the Turkish army on the 
German model. She then sent her travellers, ab- 
sorbing the commerce of the country. She then sent 
her engineers, obtaining concessions, building rail- 
ways, and practically obtaining the control of the 
so-called "Oriental" line. Finally, she became the 
self-appointed doctor of the "Sick Man." Whenever 
the illness of recent years came to a crisis — after the 
Armenian and the Macedonian atrocities, after the Cre- 
tan insurrection — Germany stepped in and paralyzed 
the action of Europe. It was Germany that not 
only enabled Turkey to crush Greece and to restore 
her military prestige, it was Germany that enabled 
her to reap the fruits of victory. 

For ten years Lohengrin appeared as the temporal 
providence, the protector of Abdul Hamid. The Holy 
Roman Emperor appeared as the saviour of the 
Commander of the Faithful. A Power which did not 
have one Mohammedan subject claimed to protect 
two hundred million Mohammedans. And when, in 

^ As recently as March 19, 1903, Prince von Bulow also de- 
clared: "Germany does not practice in the East any active 
policy." Such is the language of diplomacy, intended not to 
express our thoughts and to reveal our intentions, but carefully 
to hide them. 



German Expansion in the East 195 

1897, Emperor William went on his memorable 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, this latter-day pilgrim en- 
tered into a solemn compact with a sovereign still 
reeking from the blood of 200,000 Christians. The 
Cross made an unholy alliance with the Crescent. 

This alliance, coinciding with the journey to Jerusa- 
lem, marked a further step in the forward movement, 
in the ''Drang nach Osten'' policy. It was the third 
and the last stage, and by far the most important one. 
It was obvious that, on the European side of the 
Bosphorus, Germany could not make much further 
progress for some years to come. The times were not 
ripe. International jealousies might be prematurely 
roused, all the more so because neither the German 
Kaiser nor his subjects have the discretion and 
modesty of success. But on the Asiatic side there 
extended a vast Asiatic inheritance, to which, as yet, 
there was no European claimant; to which already, 
forty years ago, German patriots like Moltke, Ger- 
man economists like Roscher and List had drawn the 
attention of the Vaterland — a country with a healthy 
climate and with infinite resources as yet undeveloped. 
This was to be in the immediate future the field of 
German colonization. On his way to Jerusalem the 
German Emperor pressed once more his devoted 
friend the Sultan for an extension of German enterprise 
in Asia Minor. The concession of the railway to 
Baghdad was granted, and a new and marvellous 
horizon opened before the HohenzoUern. 



IV 



The Baghdad Railway will connect Haidar Pasha, 
one of the Asiatic suburbs of Constantinople, with one 



196 The Anglo-German Problem 

of the harbours conceded to Germany on the Persian 
Gulf. And already German engineers are planning to 
connect the Asiatic terminus, by means of an under- 
ground tunnel, with the European side of Constan- 
tinople and with the European railway which is 
already under German management. At the one 
end a German company will control the quays and 
eventually the customs, and at the other end she will 
have the ports of Baghdad, Bassorah, and a harbour 
still to be determined on in the Persian Gulf. 

The original plan of the Anatolian company had 
been to follow the northern route via Angora, Sivas, 
Djarbekir, following almost exactly the imperial road 
of the Romans, avoiding the mountainous ranges of 
the Taurus, passing through flourishing cities and 
entering by a gentle slope the plain of Nineveh. This 
route was both the quickest, the most convenient, and 
the cheapest. But Russia opposed her veto.^ This 
northern line would have been a standing menace to 
her Armenian and Transcaucasian possessions. In 
case of a war between Turkey and Russia, the railway 
would have been a splendid strategic line to quickly 
mobilize the Turkish army and to pour troops into 
Transcaucasia. 

The Anatolian company had therefore to follow the 
southern line, taking during the first part the route 
followed by Cyrus and the Ten Thousand in one of the 
most famous expeditions of antiquity. Every English 
public-school boy who reads his Anabasis can there- 
fore follow the general direction of the German en- 
gineers; first the valley of the Meander, then the 
ascent and the descent of the Taurus, then the plains 
of Mesopotamia. The ascent and the descent of the 

^ Convention of 1900. 



German Expansion in the East 197 

Taurus involve considerable engineering difficulties 
and an enormous expenditure, estimated at five or 
six millions sterling. 

But not only has the German company received 
the concession of the trans-Mesopotamian highway, 
hut it has also secured practical control of most of the 
branch railways already in existence. Two of these, 
and the most important, were in the hands of the 
French, and they were bought up: one line, Smyrna 
to Afium-Karahissar, being the direct trade route with 
Smyrna; the other, Mersina to Adana, giving access 
to the Gulf of Alexandretta. By an irade of 19 10 the 
Baghdad Railway Company has obtained the con- 
cession of the port of Alexandretta, which will even- 
tually become one of the most important commercial 
centres of the Mediterranean. 

And finally, the German company has obtained the 
concession of the enormous line which it is proposed to 
establish between Aleppo, Damascus, and Mecca — 
the line which will be taken by all the pilgrims to the 
city of the Prophet. Et nunc erudimini gentes! Even 
the Holy Land will become a German province. The 
network of German railways will radiate from Mecca 
to Constantinople, and from Smyrna to the Persian 
Gulf. One terminus will be within twelve hours of 
Egypt, another terminus will be within four days of 
Bombay ! 



V 



But perhaps the most important political conse- 
quence of the Baghdad scheme remains still to be 
noticed. The Baghdad line must ultimately mean the 
strengthening and the tightening of the German protect 



198 The Anglo-German Problem 

torate over European Turkey. In any case, the com- 
mercial control of Asia Minor must lead to a political 
control, and the political control of Anatolia, the 
cradle and centre of Turkish power, must sooner or 
later place Turkey at the mercy of Germany. But 
there are in the different agreements between the 
Turkish Government and the Baghdad Railway Com- 
pany special financial provisions which must precipi- 
tate this undesirable consummation. There are 
clauses which must produce results which it is im- 
possible to calculate, and the gravity of which it is 
impossible to overestimate. 

These clauses are to the effect that the Turkish 
Government will guarantee to the railway company a 
sum of 16,000 francs per kilometre. Now the most 
hopeful calculations only promise a return of 4000 
francs per kilometre. Some calculations reach as low 
a figure as 1000 francs. It is not necessary to enter 
here into the details of the financial arrangements and 
of the " kilometric " guarantees secured by the German 
company. One thing is certain, that those arrange- 
ments and guarantees will prove for many years a 
considerable drain on the Turkish Treasury. No 
doubt, after thirty or forty years, when the mineral 
resources of Asia Minor will have been tapped, when 
the agricultural resources of Mesopotamia will have 
been developed by irrigation, the country may yet 
become one of the richest tracts of the world, as it is 
naturally one of the most fertile. It may again become 
what it has repeatedly been in antiquity and in the 
Middle Ages — "a garden where the bird can fly from 
tree to tree from Baghdad to the sea." But in the 
meantime large tracts of garden are turned into a 
desert; others are infested by hordes of Kurds, who 



German Expansion in the East 199 

plunder the Turkish officials after they have finished 
murdering their Armenian victims. This plague of 
brigandage is such that the German Consul-General, 
sent to investigate on the spot, has declared that 
it would require two army corps to guard the line oj 
railway. ^ 

There can be no doubt also that under wise manage- 
ment the Turkish Government would be able to re- 
cover the millions spent on the German railway. 
But whoever knows anything about Turkish finances 
and their state of chronic bankruptcy, knows that the 
Turkish Treasury may be placed in a position where it 
will be unable to pay the annual guarantee. To pay 
herself eventually the German company has obtained 
sureties. These sureties put the Turkish Government 
in bondage. In a very few years Turkey will find 
herself in the position of a bankrupt who has surren- 
dered all her substance to a usurer. Turkey will find 
herself in the same position in which Egypt found 
herself before 1880 — with this important difference, 
that in Egypt all the Powers had the financial control, 
whilst in Turkey, Germany alone would rule supreme. 
In fact, the Sultan of Turkey will become a vassal of 
Germany. Already under Abdul Hamid the Turkish 
Government took its orders from the German am- 
bassador. Abdul Hamid reigned, but Baron Marschall 
von Bieberstein ruled. It was thought that the Young 
Turks educated in London and Paris would shake off 
the yoke of Berlin. As a matter of fact, under the 
new militarist regime, the alliance between the two 
governments is closer than before. 

^ What splendid opportunities this may eventually afford for 
military intervention. 



200 The Anglo-German Problem 

When Emperor William undertook in 1897 the 
journey to Jerusalem which was to secure to the Vater- 
land such a political triumph, when his fertile imagina- 
tion was first haunted by that glorious vision which, 
once realized, would make the Hohenzollern — the 
Holy Roman Emperor — more powerful than Charle- 
magne or Napoleon, did he expect that less than fifteen 
years would see the realization of that vision, and 
that the establishment of a virtual German Protec- 
torate would be the great achievement of his reign? 



VI 



The more we examine the political aspects of the 
Baghdad problem, the more we wonder at the ex- 
traordinary rapidity with which Germany has over- 
come what might have proved insuperable obstacles, 
the more we realize that the so-called systematic 
opposition on the part of France and England is a 
mischievous legend, fabricated by German publicists 
in search of a grievance. 

It is easy enough to see how the Sultan of Turkey 
should have been persuaded to grant the concession. 
During his reign Abdul Hamid was surrounded on all 
sides by implacable enemies, and he naturally turned 
to the protection of the great military Power of the 
West. Moreover, in Turkish eyes, the danger of the 
future was still Russia; and in case of a conflict with 
Russia, the network of railways conceded to Germany 
might be utilized for strategic purposes: they would 
immensely strengthen the military position of Turkey. 

It is also easy enough to see why the Russians, after 
securing that the Baghdad Railway should not take a 
northern direction, and follow the line of least resist- 



German Expansion in the East 201 

ance via Angora, Sivas, Djarbekir, and into the 
Mesopotamian plain, should cease to interfere, and 
should let Germany, France, and England fight out 
their differences. 

But it is not easy, indeed it is impossible, to under- 
stand how France and England without a protest 
should have allowed Germany to take possession of a 
country where the English had vital political interests, 
over which the French had exerted a religious pro- 
tectorate for many centuries, in which they had 
universities and schools, and which indeed had come 
to be called the "France of the Levant."' 

With regard to France, not only did she not make 
a firm stand to defend legitimate claims and an es- 
tablished position, but she actually offered to lend 
her own money and her political influence to further 
the schemes of her rivals. The German people were 
not prepared to sink vast sums in the Baghdad scheme, 
as the French people had sunk hundreds of millions 
for Suez and Panama. The German millions were 
urgently wanted at home, and if the Baghdad Railway 
was to be built it would have to be built mainly with 
foreign money. The German Concessionaires had 
insuperable difficulty in finding the indispensable 
working capital, and they induced French financiers 
to subscribe part of the money. The French had to 
accept for themselves all the financial risks. The 
Germans reserved to themselves all the advantages, 
all the securities, and the sole economic and political 
control ! A German railway largely built with French 
money — this is what the Germans call the systematic 
opposition of France! When the secret history of the 
Baghdad Railway is revealed, it will become obvious 

^ See M. Etienne Lamy's striking volume, La France du Levant, 



202 The Anglo-German Problem 

that the interests of France were betrayed mainly 
by M. Rouvier and his syndicate. We have it on the 
authority of M. Cheradame that M. Rouvier, before 
becoming French Minister of Finance and Prime 
Minister, controlled a private bank which had ex- 
tensive dealings with the omnipotent Deutsche Bank, 
and which was financially interested in the great 
German railway scheme. Indeed, M. Rouvier, a 
French Minister of Finance and Prime Minister, 
appears as the financial agent and mandatory of the 
Deutsche Bank.' Hence the efforts of M. Rouvier to 
further the policy of Germany. Hence the systematic 
support of the French Ambassador, M. Constans, 
acting under the instructions of M. Delcasse. Hence 
the official denials of M. Delcasse in the French 
Chamber, notwithstanding undoubted facts. ^ Hence 
the extraordinary entente cordiale between France and 
Germany on a scheme which was to make Germany 
supreme, which was to give the death-blow to French 
influence, and which would be a constant menace to 
Russia, the loyal ally of the French Republic. 

The history of French foreign policy for the last 
twenty years is not always pleasant reading^; but I 
do not know of any sadder page in that history than 
the staggering negotiations between the German 

^ "All the leading men whom I have met in Turkey, French- 
men or foreigners — and amongst these many consuls and members 
of the diplomatic body — consider M. Rouvier as the very active 
collaborator of German policy in Turkey, nay, the word has been 
used to me, as the agent of the Deutsche Bank." — Cheradame, p. 

275. 

' See Journal Officiel, p. 1468, parliamentary debate of March 
24, 1902. 

3 See the admirable and illuminating recent volume of Refi^ 
Millet, with preface by M. Hanotaux. 



German Expansion in the East 203 

Concessionaires and the French financiers and dip- 
lomats. In the French Chamber the scheme was 
branded as a new "Panama." 

Perhaps we may find a more charitable explanation 
than the one suggested by M. Cheradame. It is true 
that our explanation would exonerate those respon- 
sible from the accusation of dishonesty, but it would 
only do so by laying them open to the charge of 
imbecility. The Germans, it was contended, were 
bent on having their concession; they could not 
possibly be ousted from the field; their influence was 
supreme with the Sultan. Why should the French 
not have made the most of a hopeless situation? Why 
should they not at least claim a share in the building 
of the railway? By contributing forty per cent, of the 
capital to the Baghdad Railway, might they not 
reasonably expect to exert a proportional influence 
and control over the undertaking? 

If M. Rouvier or M. Constans or M. Delcasse ever 
honestly did entertain these hopes, they have been 
sadly deceived. And they ought to have been warned 
by the unrest and indignation which the Franco- 
German entente cordiale excited amongst their allies 
the Russians.^ The French investor would no doubt 
have a proportional risk in the railway, and before it 
was built many millions of French money would be 
lost in the plains of Babylon! But the management 
and control was, and will remain, German. The 
Germans themselves meant this to be clearly under- 
stood, and cannot be accused of any double dealing. 
They did not even trouble to conceal their game. 

^ See the comments of the Novoie Vremya at the time when 
M. Constans was trying his best to carry through the unification 
of the Ottoman debt. 



204 The Anglo-German Problem 

The original plan of the financiers of the Deutsche 
Bank, the great instrument of German penetration in 
Turkey, was only too clear. The financial co-opera- 
tion of France was indispensable. The French inves- 
tors, with their usual gullibility, and coaxed by M. 
Rouvier and his friends, would have taken up fifty, 
or perhaps seventy or eighty per cent.^ of the shares 
at a very high figure. From the necessity of the situa- 
tion and the inevitable incipient difficulties in the 
construction of the railway, the shares would very 
soon fall very low. The German syndicate would 
then have bought up the whole stock, and thereby 
would have made the financial scheme possible 
for the German banks. The Baghdad Railway with 
the Deutsche Bank would have exactly repeated 
the history of the Ottoman railways with M. de 
Hitsch. 

Whatever may be the true explanation of the 
Franco-German entente on the Baghdad Railway, it 
will probably be considered by future historians as the 
most extraordinary chapter in the history of contem- 
porary French diplomacy. And this Franco-German 
episode seems to me to he the true key to the Moroccan 
crisis. In the Baghdad Railway affair Germany had 
had an excellent opportunity of studying the strange 
influences at work in French foreign policy. Germany 
saw how easily she had ousted France from Asia Minor 
where French claims were so strong. Why should she 
not easily oust her neighbours from another sphere 
of influence? In both cases German diplomacy, if 
unscrupulous, was successful, and, as against French 

^Eighty per cent, was the figure given by M. Etienne, the 
former War Secretary and leader of the French Colonial Party. 



German Expansion in the East 205 

diplomacy, deserved to he successful. In both cases 
France was lamentably led astray by those in control 
of her foreign policy. In both emergencies — and that 
is the real explanation of the bewildering blunders and 
inconsistencies of French diplomacy — France was too 
much distracted by her internal quarrels and by the 
vital question of the separation between Church and 
State to give any heed to her international position. 



VII 



In her Near Eastern policy English diplomacy has 
not been influenced by the sordid motives which have 
influenced French diplomacy. There have been no 
secret combinations and syndicates of politicians and 
financiers working against the interests of their coun- 
try. Yet in the end the interests of England have 
been betrayed quite as effectually by English states- 
men as by French statesmen, and those English in- 
terests are incomparably more important. For the 
Baghdad Railway threatens the Imperial future of 
Britain on at least two vital points. The south-eastern 
section between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf 
threatens India, the south-western section between 
Aleppo, Damascus, and Mecca threatens Egypt. 

German publicists, of course, will tell us that these 
dangers are purely imaginary, and that those sus- 
picions only prove the hostile feelings of those who 
make them. But we have, alas! too many and too 
convincing proofs that the danger is very far from 
being imaginary. The following statement by Dr. 
Paul Rohrbach tells its own tale and needs no com- 
mentary, and is all the more singular when it is 
remembered that Dr. Rohrbach is one of the most 



2o6 The Anglo -German Problem 

authoritative exponents of German foreign policy, 
that he is a man of moderate opinions and what is 
called a "sound" man, and a regular contributor to 
Radical as well as National-Liberal periodicals. 



One factor and one alone will determine the possibility of a 
successful issue for Germany in such a conflict : whether or not we 
succeed in placing England in a perilous position. A direct attack 
upon England across the North Sea is out of the question; the 
prospect of a German invasion of England is a fantastic dream. 
It is necessary to discover another combination in order to hit 
England in a vulnerable spot — aiid here we come to the point where 
the relationship of Germany to Turkey and the conditions prevailing 
in Turkey become of decisive importance for German foreign policy ^ 
based as it now is upon watchfulness in the direction of England. . . . 
England can be attacked and mortally wounded by land from 
Europe only in one place — Egypt. The loss of Egypt would mean 
for England not only the end of her dominion over the Suez Canal, 
and of her connections with India and the Far East, but would 
probably entail the loss also of her possessions in Central and 
East Africa. The conquest of Egypt by a Mohammedan Power, 
like Turkey, would also imperil England's hold over her sixty 
million Mohammedan subjects in India, besides prejudicing her 
relations with Afghanistan and Persia. Turkey, however, can 
never dream of recovering Egypt until she is mistress of a de- 
veloped railway system in Asia Minor and Syria, and until 
through the progress of the Anatolian Railway to Baghdad, she 
is in a position to withstand an attack by England upon Meso- 
potamia. The Turkish army must be increased and improved, 
and progress must be made in her economic and financial posi- 
tion. . . . The stronger Turkey grows, the more dangerous does 
she become for England. . . . Egypt is a prize which for Turkey 
would be well worth the risk of taking sides with Germany in a 
war with England. The policy of protecting Turkey, which is now 
pursued by Germany, has no other object but the desire to effect an 
insurance against the danger of a war with England. ^ 

^ Rohrbach's Die Bagdadbahn, pp. i8, 19. Berlin, 191 1. 



German Expansion in the East 207 

At the beginning of this chapter I stated that 
England, so far from opposing German expansion in 
the Near East, had betrayed some vital interests of 
the empire in her desire to conciliate her German 
neighbours. Those who have taken the trouble to 
follow the argument contained in these preceding 
pages, those who will give careful consideration to the 
weighty utterances and admissions of Dr. Rohrbach, 
and those who, apart from any such admissions, 
merely think out the necessary trend of German 
politics and the logic of events, will be little inclined 
to accuse me of any exaggeration. And certainly if 
British public opinion is not enlightened as to the 
true nature of German expansion in the Near East, it 
will not be for lack of due warning on the part of our 
German rivals. For it must be confessed that, with 
all their shortcomings, there is one reproach from 
which they are singularly free, and for which they are 
often most unjustly accused — namely, the reproach 
of deceitfulness. German diplomacy may be con- 
tradictory and jerky, but it certainly is not deceitful. 
So far from working in the dark, the German politician 
trumpets his schemes, blurts out his intentions, and 
by forewarning his competitors gives them ample 
opportunity to forearm themselves. In the case of the 
Baghdad Railway, the fore warnings have been so 
numerous that the neglect to profit by them would be 
inexcusable. If, indeed, as Dr. Rohrbach tells us, the 
ultimate aim of German policy in the Near East is not 
peaceful penetration and commercial expansion, but 
the building of strategic railways, and the threatening 
of Egypt and India, then obviously the bounden duty 
of English statesmen is not to advance any further in 
the path of concession, but to speak out with no un- 



2o8 The Anglo-German Problem 

certain voice; to call a halt, to demand the neutraliza- 
tion of Mesopotamia to the south of Baghdad, and 
generally to oppose a vigorous non possumus to the 
political control of those parts of Asia where England 
has vital Imperial interests. 



THE SECOND GERMAN GRIEVANCE 
Has England Hemmed in Germany ? 

We are now coming to the second German grievance 
against this country. It is contended that England 
has tempted and seduced the friends and alHes of 
Germany; that she has stirred up Europe against her; 
that she has hemmed her in, encircled her, isolated 
her; that Edward the Seventh was the arch-plotter 
in the diplomatic drama; that England has been the 
disturbing factor in international politics, and that 
in the Concert of Europe she has wrested the con- 
ductor's baton from the hands of the Kaiser. 

It is certain that the position of Germany in 191 1 
is not what it was in 1871. For thirty years Germany 
was the one supreme power in Europe. To-day the 
equilibrium has been restored, and Germany has 
fallen from her high estate. But can it be said that 
England is responsible for the new grouping of Powers, 
and is that new grouping directed against Germany, or 
inspired by any hostihty to the German people? A 
brief history of the international relations since 1871 
will place the facts in their true light, and will dispose 
of the mischievous myth of an anti-German conspiracy 
initiated and led by England. In 1871 France was 
standing alone in the wilderness. She was humiliated 
and paralysed, and at the mercy of any German 
14 209 



2IO The Anglo-German Problem 

attack. Germany's supremacy was unquestioned. 
She was the umpire of the Continent. She dictated 
her own terms to the other Powers, or acted as the 
"honest broker" in settHng their differences, and the 
brokerage which she claimed for her services was a 
heavy one. 

The Treaty of Berlin in 1878 was the high-water 
mark of German influence. In appearance it was a 
triimiph for England, and Beaconsfield was acclaimed 
by the London mob when he brought back "peace with 
honour"; but in reality the Treaty of Berlin was a 
triumph for Germany. After a victorious campaign 
Russia had obtained nothing. Without striking a 
blow Austria, as the German ally, had obtained 
Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was the beginning of the 
Eastern policy, of the ''Drang nach Osten" of the 
Habsburg monarchy. The possession of a Mediter- 
ranean outlet became henceforth the aim of Austrian 
policy; and whereas the gates of Constantinople 
seemed closed for ever against Russia, the gates of 
Salonica were half opened to Austria, and allured her 
from the distance. And whilst Austria was preparing 
to reduce Servia to vassalage, Germany was demand- 
ing payment for her services from Turkey, whom she 
had saved from Russian ambitions. The early 'eigh- 
ties marked the beginning of German penetration in 
the Near East. The German Emperor was preparing 
to become the Supreme Protector of Mohammedanism. 

What the Treaty of BerHn in 1878 had been in 
continental politics, the Conference of Berlin in 1884 
proved to be in colonial politics. The Conference of 
Berlin once again proved the supremacy of Germany 
in European diplomacy, and it also proved how 
entirely Germany was determined to concentrate all 



The Second German Grievance 211 

her energies on retaining that supremacy. It is true 
that Bismarck accepted a few tropical and subtropical 
regions in different parts of the world to satisfy a 
noisy minority, but it cannot be sufficiently empha- 
sized that he remained in principle hostile to colonial 
expansion. Let France waste her energies and find a 
safety-valve for her restless spirit in oversea adven- 
ture; let her get embroiled with Italy in the Medi- 
terranean and with England in every part of the 
world. She would become all the more harmless in 
Europe. As for Germany, she would not let herself 
be deluded by the mirage of the African desert, and 
sacrifice the substance for the shadow. Perhaps 
Bismarck was harbouring afterthoughts. Perhaps 
he was only opposed to a colonial policy because he 
thought it premature. Does not experience show that 
colonization in its preliminary stages is always ruin- 
ous ? If in course of time French colonial expansion 
were to prove remunerative, Germany could always 
step in and pluck the tropical fruit when it was mature. 
Whether Bismarck had those afterthoughts or not it 
is difficult to say. He has not revealed them in his 
Reminiscences. And whatever his ultimate motive in 
the meantime, he certainly thought that the real 
historical mission of Germany was on the Continent, 
and her highest ambition to direct the politics of the 
Old World. 

But at the very moment when Bismarck was 
sacrificing a colonial empire to the control of European 
politics, that control was beginning to slip from his 
grasp. The Iron Chancellor had made an irretrievable 
mistake in 1878, and alienated for ever the Russian 
people. He had been scared, like England, by the 
imminence of the Russian danger. He had treated a 



212 The Anglo-German Problem 

victorious ally as if he had been a vanquished enemy. 
The hereditary hatred between the Slav and the 
Teuton revived, and would have led to an immediate 
conflict between the two Powers if at that critical 
moment, immediately after the Turkish War, the 
Russian Government had not been paralysed by the 
great NihiHst crisis which culminated in the assassina- 
tion of the Czar. 

After the Treaty of Berlin a Franco-Russian under- 
standing was unavoidable. France and Russia were 
drawn together by common grievances and common 
interests. 

Bismarck realized his mistake when it was too late, 
and he devoted the last years of his rule to a deter- 
mined attempt to restore the understanding between 
Germany and Russia. In order to prevent the Franco- 
Russian Alliance he was even prepared to sacrifice the 
alliance with Austria. But what had been done could 
not be undone. Popular feeling in Russia was such 
that even Alexander the Third had to give way. 
That the most reactionary Government which Europe 
had seen since Nicholas the First — that the regime of 
Pobiedonostseff should ally itself with a revolutionary 
republic — that a Czar whose father was the martyr 
of Nihilism, and who himself was a bigoted Orthodox 
Churchman, should conquer his most inveterate re- 
ligious and political prejudices and accept an alliance 
with a nation of rebels and anti-Clericals — proved how 
irresistible was the pressure of public opinion in the 
Russian Empire, and how profound the hatred of Ger- 
many. The Franco-Russian demonstrations at Cron- 
stadt and Toulon evoked equal enthusiasm in the 
autocratic monarchy and in the radical republic. 

But however uneasy Germany might be about 



The Second German Grievance 213 

Russia, she felt easy and reassured about England. 
The conclusion of the Franco-Russian Alliance only 
seemed to consolidate the entente of England with 
Germany. Those were the days when England, 
always anxious about the Russian advance towards 
India, was proclaiming that the oasis of Merv was the 
"key" of India, and when the English people had 
periodical fits of " Mervousness." On the other hand, 
Bismarck had succeeded only too well in embroiling 
France and Italy, and France and England. The old 
colonial rivalry which marked the eighteenth century 
also disturbed the end of the nineteenth, and was soon 
to culminate in Fashoda. As the alliance between 
France and Russia was consolidated by the common 
fear of Germany, the entente between England and 
Germany was assured by a common distrust of France 
and Russia. 

The Anglo-German entente was still further consoli- 
dated by dynastic ties, and it continued undisturbed 
for nearly a quarter of a century. Mr. Chamberlain 
was as loyal to it as Lord Salisbury, and Lord 
Rosebery supported it as enthusiastically as Mr. 
Chamberlain. The cession of Heligoland in 1890 
proves how absolute was the trust in the friendship 
of Germ^any. Little did English statesmen of the 
day foresee that Heligoland would soon be fortified 
into a formidable naval base against England. The 
famous Leicester speech of Mr. Chamberlain in 1899 
was the programme of a union of the three branches 
of the Teutonic stock, the Triple AlHance of the 
future. 

But when Mr. Chamberlain made his famous 
declaration of 1899, clouds were already gathering 
and threatening the Anglo-German friendship. The 



214 The Anglo-German Problem 

feeling of the English people towards the German 
people had never been heartily reciprocated. Any 
student of German political literature will be edified 
on that point; but hitherto the German Government 
had been co-operating with the British Government. 
From the early 'nineties the parallel lines began to 
diverge, and ambitions were being awakened which 
could be realized only in opposition to England. The 
Kruger telegram of 1896, supposed to have been 
drawn up by the late German Ambassador, Marschall 
von Bieberstein, as Foreign Secretary, clearly indi- 
cated in which direction the German mind was moving 
and the German wind was blowing, for the telegram 
was not an "impulsive" act of the Kaiser; it was 
deliberate, and Emperor William was only the spokes- 
man of German public opinion. The outbreak of the 
Transvaal War and the checks suffered by England 
were the occasion of a wild outburst of anti-British 
feeling which continued all through the duration of 
the war, and which has never ceased to manifest itself 
since. The German people were convinced that the 
end of the British Empire was in sight, that England 
was an effete Power, and that Germany was destined 
to be in the near future the universal legatee of the 
British Empire. 

One fact is certain: the end of the Transvaal War 
marks the beginning of the German Weltpolitik on a 
grand scale. Germany put in claims on every con- 
tinent, and set herself with feverish haste to develop 
her naval power to support her claims. The new Naval 
Bill was passed in 1900. In 1902 Germany negotiated 
with France for a harbour and a naval base on the west 
coast of Morocco. In 1902 she made a naval demon- 
stration against Venezuela. Obviously Germany was 



The Second German Grievance 215 

determined to lose no time in building up her world 
empire. 

The anti-British feeling and the aggressive spirit 
which animated the German people at last opened 
the eyes of England. She realized the danger which 
threatened Europe from German supremacy and 
England from German naval ambitions. The Trans- 
vaal War had revealed the weak spots of British 
military organization, and the pressing demand for 
drastic social reforms severely taxed financial re- 
sources, which would otherwise have been devoted to 
the expansion of the army and navy. England could 
not afford to retain the "splendid " isolation which had 
characterized her recent policy. It was all the more 
necessary to draw nearer to France and Russia, and to 
join the international system, because Russia had been 
weakened by the Japanese disasters, and was tempo- 
rarily paralysed by a protracted civil war, and France 
was not strong enough to oppose single-handed the 
solid bloc of the Triple Alliance. 

It was the pressure of those circumstances and the 
consciousness of a national and European peril which 
dictated the policy associated with Edward the 
Seventh, and which the Germans themselves have 
called the ^^ Edwards die Pvlitik.'' That pressure 
imposed the necessity of a system of understandings 
which would be a sufficient counterpoise to German 
omnipotence. Such a pressure alone could have ren- 
dered possible, a few years after Fashoda, an Anglo- 
French entente and could have put an end to the old 
colonial rivalry of the two countries. Such a pressure 
alone could have brought together and reconciled, a 
few years after the Japanese Alliance, three Powers 
which had opposed each other for nearly a century. 



2i6 The Anglo-German Problem 

The "Edwardian Policy" marks a new era in the 
history of European diplomacy. Both the aim and 
the methods were equally novel. For the object in 
view implied the rupture of a long-standing friend- 
ship, and the close co-operation with two hereditary 
enemies ; and the methods were little short of a revo- 
lution. The personal policy of Edward the Seventh, 
and the fact of a British monarch becoming his own 
Foreign Secretary, were contrary, if not to the spirit 
of the British Constitution, at least to the traditions 
of the British Foreign Office; but the necessity was so 
urgent and the personal diplomacy was so successful 
that English democracy accepted the accomplished 
fact. 

Whilst the Triple Entente was thus consolidated, 
the Triple AlHance was gradually becoming dislocated. 
France and Italy had quarrelled on the question of 
Tunis. They were reconciled on the question of 
Tripoli. Popular feeling in Italy was becoming 
increasingly hostile to the Austro-German Alliance. 
Italian democracy looked with misgiving at an under- 
standing with Prussia, which was the mainstay of 
reaction, and Italian nationalism looked with distrust 
at an understanding with Austria, which was holding 
Trieste in defiance of Italian aspirations. 

The Triple Alliance, therefore, had virtually been 
transformed into a Dual Alliance. In case of war 
Germany could only fall back on Austria. But even 
here Germany was not without anxious doubts as to 
the future. It is true that Austria had given a quali- 
fied support to Germany at the Algeciras Conference, 
and Germany rewarded her "loyal SekundanV by 
supporting her in the annexation of Bosnia-Herze- 
govina. But would Gennany always be able to rely 



The Second German Grievance 217 

on the co-operation of the Dual Monarchy? Might 
not a fatal course of events in the near future relax 
the union of the two empires? For the Austrian 
Empire is a federation, and a federation in which the 
Germans are only a small minority. Hitherto the 
minority have ruled, not because of their intrinsic 
superiority, but because of the racial and religious 
differences which separated the majority. The Aus- 
trians are clamouring for expansion in the Near East. 
But might not this cry defeat its own purpose? They 
have secured Bosnia-Herzegovina. But the more 
they expand into non-German territory, the more the 
German population will be outnumbered by the Slavs. 
And if Austria did reach Salonica — if Servia were 
annexed to the Habsburg Empire — would not the 
balance of power be definitely transferred to the Slav 
races? 

Nor must we forget, in trying to understand German 
anxieties about the future, that the advance of Bul- 
garia was creating a new factor in the Balkans, and 
that the recent revolution of Young Turkey might 
prove in the end a severe blow to German power. 
For had not the recent revolution been accomplished 
against Germany by reformers who, on the one hand, 
had received their political education in England and 
France, and who, on the other hand, were aggressive 
Nationalists? And would not the new regime be a re- 
versal of the old Turkish regime, controlled by German 
advisers ? Prudence might no doubt compel the Young 
Turks to humour the Hohenzollern, but the intimate 
union of the two governments which prevailed under 
Abdul Hamid — had this not come to an end, and 
perhaps for ever? And the Young Turks might be all 
the less inclined to favour German influence because 



2i8 The Anglo-German Problem 

they dreaded her expansion in Anatolia and Mesopo- 
tamia. And might it not be the policy of Turkey for 
the next generation to play off the different Powers, 
the one against the other? 

Surveying, then, the whole European situation and 
the new constellation in the political horizon, many 
changes have happened of a nature to make the 
Germans uneasy. The Algeciras Conference was a 
dramatic demonstration of the changed position of 
Germany in Europe. To realize the change, we have 
only to compare an account of the Conference of 1905 
with an account of the Congress of Berlin in 1878. In 
1878 the European Powers received their mandate 
from Bismarck. At Algeciras Germany almost stood 
alone. Algeciras was a solemn protest of Europe 
against German hegemony. 

Since 1905 Germany has made unceasing efforts 
to break the Triple Entente. At Algeciras she failed 
to drive a wedge between England and France. She 
failed even more signally in 191 1, after the coup of 
Agadir. Through one of those sudden changes in the 
kaleidoscope of diplomacy, she seems to have been 
more successful with Russia at Potsdam. But the 
Potsdam agreement is only the temporary under- 
standing of two reactionary governments. It is not 
the entente of two nations. The interests of the 
German and of the Russian people as well as their 
temperaments continue to be irreconcilable, and the 
day is drawing near when Russia — which in 1930 will 
number two hundred millions of people — will block 
the way of German expansion in the East. 

But whatever the future may hold in store for 
Germany, the foregoing analysis shows that the new 
grouping of Powers, which has reduced Germany from 



The Second German Grievance 219 

a position of sole supremacy to a position of equality, 
is not the result of any artificial combinations of 
diplomacy. Still less is it the result of a conspiracy, 
inspired by English envy and English hatred. It was 
not initiated by Edward the Seventh. It has survived 
his death. To assume that England would have been 
capable of isolating Germany by her own single efforts, 
and in order to serve her own selfish purposes, is to 
attribute to England a power which she does not 
wield. If there has been a conspiracy, France, Italy, 
Russia, and the United States, inhabited by twenty 
million citizens who are German by birth or by descent, 
have all been willing accomplices. The Triple En- 
tente has been a spontaneous revolt of Europe against 
German aggressiveness and German militarism. 

England has not attempted to isolate Germany. 
She has only herself emerged from her isolation. 
If she can be accused of having made a grievous 
mistake in her foreign policy, it is that of having been 
blind for so long to the perils which threatened 
European liberty. Since 1870 she has submitted for 
twenty-five years to German predominance, because 
she had to oppose the colonial ambitions of France in 
Africa and the ambitions of Russia in Asia. To-day 
England has returned to her ancient traditions. She 
has never suffered for any length of time, and will 
never suffer as long as she remains a first-class Power, 
from the exclusive predominance of any one Con- 
tinental nation. She has ever fought for the main- 
tenance of the balance of power. She defended that 
balance against Charles the Fifth and Philip the 
Second in the sixteenth century, against Louis the 
Fourteenth in the seventeenth, against Napoleon, 
against Nicholas the First, and Alexander the Second 



220 The Anglo-German Problem 

in the nineteenth century. She defends it to-day 
against William the Second. But she is no more the 
enemy of Germany to-day than she was the enemy of 
France or Russia ten years ago. And if the equi- 
lihrium of Europe were threatened to-morrow hy Russia, 
as it is threatened to-day by Germany , England would 
become to-morrow the ally of Germany. 

It may be contended, no doubt, that in opposing 
the supremacy of another empire on land, she is only 
defending her own supremacy on the sea. But the 
history of four hundred years convincingly shows that 
England in defending her own interests has always 
been fighting the battles of European liberty. And 
to-day more than ever, when Europe is transformed 
into an armed camp, when might has become the 
criterion of right, when all nations are living in per- 
petual dread of a European conflagration, the strict 
adherence of England to her old principle of the 
balance of power remains the best sanction of inter- 
national law and the surest guarantee of the peace of 
the world. 



IS GERMAN SOCIALISM MAKING FOR PEACE? 

It is becoming a commonplace to assert that the 
advent to power of the German Socialists will usher 
in a new era in the international relations of Europe. 
It is true that the Prussian monarchy is warlike by- 
tradition. It is true that the Junkertum have a pro- 
fessional interest in war. It is true that the industrial 
magnates, the Krupps and the Thyssens, have a vested 
interest in the military industries, in the manufacture 
of guns and Dreadnoughts. But the power of Kaiser 
and Junkertum is dwindling. The army of democracy 
is advancing. If the rural elector did not possess 
ten times the voting power of the labouring masses of 
the big cities — if the electoral districts were divided 
in proportion to population — the Socialists with the 
Radicals would already have a large majority in the 
Reichstag. Even under the present iniquitous sys- 
tem the elections of January, 191 2, have given the 
Social Democrats a formidable accession of strength. 
Another effort, another ballot, and political power will 
pass into the hands of the masses. Germany will have 
its Socialist ministers as France has its Millerand 
and its Briand. When that desirable consummation 
happens, peace will be assured. Redeunt Saturnia 
regna. 

Certainly the Socialist vote has enormously in- 
creased, and with the single exception of the set-back 

221 



222 The Anglo-German Problem 

of 1907, when the Social Democrats suffered a crush- 
ing defeat and when Prince von Biilow succeeded in 
forming against them a Liberal-Conservative hloCy 
the increase has been steady and automatic. And 
extraordinary though it seeins, the increase has been 
inevitable, and it will cease to startle us if we remember 
that German industry has been born since 1870, and 
that every increase of the industrial population has 
necessarily meant a corresponding increase of Social- 
ism. It is only since, and it is only because, Berlin 
has become a huge industrial metropolis that the 
capital of the Hohenzollern has been captured by the 
Socialist Genossen. 

But there is one thing which is even more astound- 
ing than the phenomenal growth of Socialism, and 
that is its impotence. The very contrast between its 
numerical power and the paucity of its achievements 
reveals the inherent weakness of the party. It is 
admirably organized; it is characterized by splendid 
loyalty and discipline. The German Social Democrat 
pays his subscription liberally and regularly. But he 
gives us once more a striking proof that neither 
numbers nor organization nor financial resources are 
the decisive factors of victory. After the Franco- 
German War, Bebel, intoxicated by the first triumphs 
of his party, prophesied that by 1896 the social and po- 
litical revolution would have triumphed in Germany, 
and that Communism would be established. In 191 2 
Communism has not prevailed, and Prussian reaction 
is stronger than ever. 

And yet the prophecy of the Socialist leader seemed 
justified. If in France or Italy there were one hun- 
dred Socialist deputies in Parliament, the machinery 
of Government would cease to work, once those bun- 



Is German Socialism for Peace ? 223 

dred deputies had made up their minds that it should 
not work. In France a party with four milHons of 
followers would either have accomplished momentous 
reforms or produced a tremendous upheaval. In 
Germany Social Democracy has accomplished very 
little; it has delivered speeches innumerable; it 
has issued manifestoes; it has organized processions 
several miles in length, whenever the man with the 
peaked helmet chose to allow such processions. But 
the history of German contemporary Socialism does 
not count a single historical day like the Berlin days 
of 1848, when even Frederick the Fourth had to give 
way to the democratic demands. The mighty Social 
Democratic Party has not achieved one big strike like 
the railway strike or the coal strike in England, al- 
though Prussian railwaymen or coal miners could 
easily have exerted pressure on the Government be- 
cause the majority of Prussian railways and a large 
number of Prussian mines are owned by the State. 
The Prussian Government may put itself above the 
law, and it does put itself above the law; it may vio- 
late the spirit of the ConvStitution and make it a dead 
letter ; the Kaiser may break his most solemn pledges ; 
but all provocation notwithstanding, the Socialist 
remains a law-abiding citizen, and trusts to the in- 
evitable agency of natural laws and to the working 
of economic evolution. 

It will be objected that important Socialist meas- 
ures have been passed by the German Reichstag, and 
that the German Government may claim the merit and 
credit of having set an example in social legislation 
to all other civilized countries. By all means let due 
honour be given to German statesmen for initiating 
their insurance legislation; but, as we already pointed 



224 The Anglo-German Problem 

out, those laws were passed by Bismarck long before 
Socialism existed as a party. And they were passed 
largely on the principle that ** prevention is better than 
cure," and because the Government were still afraid 
of the phantom of Socialism. To-day the Prussian 
Government have ceased to be afraid. Socialism has 
become a reality, its supporters are counted by mil- 
lions, and nothing is changed in the kingdom of 
Prussia. 

In explanation of the impotence of German Social- 
ism it may be urged that in any insurrection against 
a tyrannical government the Socialists would run 
a terrible risk — that they would have the majority 
of the army against them. And there is a great deal 
of truth in that explanation. It is one of many false 
notions current about our Continental neighbours that 
the German army is essentially a national army, a 
citizen army, a universal service army. As a matter 
of fact, hundreds of thousands of German youths are 
not called upon to serve, and that not for financial 
reasons but for political reasons. They are not called 
upon to serve because the Government have not suffi- 
cient confidence in their loyalty. The majority of the 
military contingent ought to come from the cities, 
which represent the majority of the population. As a 
matter of fact, the majority come from the country, 
which represents the minority of the population. The 
Government prefers to rely on the loyalty of the rural 
recruits, even as the Russian Government in an 
emergency prefers to rely on the Cossacks. 

But the main reason why German Socialism does not 
possess the dynamic power which it possesses in Eng- 
land and France does not lie in the Government. 
Rather does it lie in the nature of the Socialist doctrine 



Is German Socialism for Peace ? 225 

and in the temperament of the German people. Why- 
should the German Social Democrat make a sacrifice 
for his ideal or make a resolute stand against despotism, 
when the Marxist doctrine tells him that the new era 
will come automatically, mechanically, and that all the 
forces of the times are working for him? And how 
can we expect the German artisan to rebel when cen- 
turies of oppression have inured him to passive obe- 
dience ? In this connection we ought to remember once 
more that German Social Democracy is organized 
exactly on the same military and despotic principle 
as the German Government. King Bebel demands as 
implicit obedience as Kaiser William. Iron discipline 
and unquestioning submission are perhaps greater in 
the army of labour than in the army of reaction. 

And not only is German Socialism not as strong; 
neither is it as pacifist as is generally supposed. 
Outsiders take it for granted that in the event of a 
conflict between France and Germany there would be 
solidarity between the French and the German artisans. 
They assume that Socialism is essentially interna- 
tional. And in theory such an assumption is quite 
legitimate. But many things in Germany are na- 
tional which elsewhere are universal. And in Ger- 
many Socialism is becoming national, as German 
political economy is national, as German science is 
national, as German religion is national. Therefore 
the political axiom that German Socialists would 
necessarily come to an understanding with their 
French and English brethren has been falsified by the 
event. German Socialists have, no doubt, shown their 
pacific intentions ; they have issued pacific manifestoes 
and organized pacific processions; they have filed off 
in their hundreds of thousands in the streets of Berlin 

IS 



226 The Anglo-German Problem 

to protest against the war party; but when the 
question of peace or war has been brought to a point 
in Socialist congresses — when their foreign brethren 
have moved that in the case of an unjust aggression 
the German Social Democrats should declare a military- 
strike — German Socialists have refused to assent. 
The dramatic oratorical duel which took place between 
the French and the German delegates at the Congress 
of Stuttgart illustrates the differences between the 
national temperament of the Frenchman and the 
German. When called upon to proclaim the military 
strike, the German Socialists gave as an excuse that 
such a decision would frighten away from the Social 
Democrat Party hundreds of thousands of middle- 
class supporters. This excuse is an additional proof 
of the moral and political weakness of Social Demo- 
cracy. It illustrates its moral weakness; for the 
Socialist leaders sacrifice a great principle for the sake 
of an electoral gain. The leaders know that national- 
ist feeling runs high in the middle classes ; they know 
that any anti-militarist poHcy would be unpopular. 
And they have not the courage as a party to face 
unpopularity. And the arguments used at Stuttgart 
also illustrate the political weakness of German 
Socialism; for they show that the Socialist vote does 
not possess the cohesion and homogeneity with which 
it is credited: they show that hundreds of thousands 
of citizens who record a Socialist vote are not Socialists 
at all. To vote for Socialism is merely an indirect 
way of voting against the Government. There is no 
organized Opposition in Germany. The Socialists 
are the only party who are *'agin the Government." 
And all those German citizens who are dissatisfied 
with conditions as they are, choose this indirect and 



Is German Socialism for Peace ? 22*] 

clumsy method of voting for the Socialists in order 
to express their dissatisfaction with the present 
Prussian despotism. 

It is therefore not true to say that Socialism in 
Germany is a decisive force working for peace. It 
would be more true to say that it is a force working 
for war, simply because it is a force working for 
reaction. Prussian reaction would not be so strong if 
it were not for the bugbear of Social Democracy. 
If Social Democracy attracts a considerable section 
of the lower middle class, it repels and frightens the 
bulk of the middle classes as well as of the upper 
classes. Many Liberals, who would otherwise oppose 
the Government, support it from horror of the red 
flag, and they strengthen unwillingly the power of 
reaction. And therefore it would scarcely be a paradox 
to say that the nearer the approach of the Socialistic 
reign, the greater would be the danger to international 
peace. German contemporary history illustrates once 
more a general law of history, that the dread of a 
civil war is often a direct cause of a foreign war, and 
that the ruling classes are driven to seek outside a 
diversion from internal difficulties. Thus political 
unrest ushered in the wars of the Revolution 
and the Empire; thus the internal difficulties of 
Napoleon the Third brought about the Franco- 
German War; thus the internal upheaval of Russia 
in our days produced the Russo-Japanese War. 

It may be true that power is slipping away from 
the hands of the Prussian Junkertum and the bureau- 
cracy, although Prussian reaction is far stronger than 
most foreign critics realize. But whether it be strong 
or weak, one thing is certain: a power which has 
been supreme for two centuries will not surrender 



228 The Anglo-German Problem 

without a struggle. The Prussian Junkers may be 
politically stupid, but they have not lost the fighting 
spirit, and they will not give way to the "mob. " Be- 
fore Prussian reaction capitulates, it will play its last 
card and seek salvation in a European conflagration. 



THE GERMAN KAISER 

To write a book on German politics which would 
ignore the German Kaiser would be like playing 
Hamlet whilst leaving out the character of the Danish 
prince. For the Kaiser meets us at every turn. In 
the words of Victor Hugo, speaking of Napoleon: 
" Toujour s lui, lui partout. " It may be found on close 
examination that his influence on the political drama 
is far less decisive than appears at first sight, even as 
in Shakespeare's masterpiece Hamlet has little influ- 
ence on the actual development of the plot. It may 
be that the Kaiser's part is more spectacular than 
dramatic. But whether we like him, whether we 
believe in him or not, we cannot avoid his august 
presence. 

And even if his absorbing personality did not force 
itself upon our attention, its study would still present 
to VIS a most fascinating problem. For the Kaiser is 
essentially complex and perplexing, elusive and stimu- 
lating, explosive and incalculable. With him it is 
the unexpected that always happens. He is a bundle 
of contradictions. He is the war lord of Europe; yet 
he has been nicknamed by the German war party, 
*' William the Peaceful." He is a German of the 
Germans ; yet he professes to be the friend of England. 
He is intensely religious, and claims to be the Anointed 
of the Lord; yet in many respects he is a materialist, 

229 



230 The Anglo-German Problem 

mainly trusting in brute force. He is picturesquely 
mediaeval, and the HohenzoUern seems to be ever 
anxious to model himself on the Hohenstauf en ; yet 
he is pre-eminently modern. He shocks us as offen- 
sively theatrical; yet he is unmistakably sincere. 

Any one who attempts to write on the German 
Emperor must solve those glaring contradictions. 
And he will only succeed in doing so if he carefully 
dissociates the various elements which have entered 
into his composition. He will only succeed if he 
separates what the Kaiser owes to his ancestry, and 
what he owes to his education; what he owes to his 
inmost personality; what he owes to his immediate 
surroundings and to the age he lives in. It is for want 
of making those necessary distinctions that so many 
publicists who have given us biographies and char- 
acter sketches of the Kaiser have failed to reveal 
him. 

And after all, when every fact has been conscien- 
tiously sifted and analysed, even the most careful 
student cannot be sure of having hit the Imperial 
likeness. It seems as if the Kaiser each time he sits 
for his portrait not merely dons a different uniform, 
but puts on a different moral physiognomy. On three 
occasions I have made an attempt to draw a pen 
portrait of Emperor William, and each sketch was 
different from the other; each subsequent judgment 
contradicted my previous estimate. I do not, there- 
fore, pretend in the present instance to give a final de- 
finition of the German autocrat, for the simple reason 
that it is not possible to give a final definition. It 
must be left to the reader to exert his own judgment 
and to compare my estimate of Emperor William with 
the estimate of those who have written before us. 



The German Kaiser 231 

I 

The Hohenzollern Influence 

First in importance is the Hohenzollern influence. 

Few royal families in history possess a more marked 
individuality. Each member of the dynasty may 
differ widely from his predecessor or successor. The 
cynical man of genius, Frederick the Great, is not like 
the feeble voluptuary, Frederick William the Third, 
who again is very unlike the romantic and mystical 
dreamer, Frederick the Fourth. And yet as rulers 
they all have a certain common type. They have 
created a definite European State, and they themselves 
have been moulded by that State. 

I. Considering the enormous part they have 
played in history, and how closely the Hohenzollerns 
have been identified with the fortunes of Prussia, it 
is natural that their first characteristic should be an 
overweening dynastic pride. No Bourbon or Habs- 
burg has ever believed more firmly in his Divine Right 
to govern or misgovern his people. A Hohenzollern 
may condescend to employ men of genius to assist him 
in his providential task, but he will only consider those 
men of genius as tools to work out his own ends, and 
he will discard those tools whenever they have served 
their purpose, or whenever they have ceased to be 
pliable instruments. 

William possesses in the highest degree the pride 
of his race. Every tourist can judge from one of the 
most interesting and most impressive monuments 
of Berlin, the Sieges Allee, what is William's practical 
conception of German history. In that symbolical 
.avenue all the glories of the past have been enlisted 



232 The Anglo-German Problem 

as liegemen of the HohenzoUern. The most petty 
Prussian margrave assumes colossal proportions, 
whilst giants like Luther and Kant appear only to the 
right and to the left as the humble servants and Hand- 
langer of their princes. We may smile at such a 
travesty of German history and at the glorification 
of royal nonentities, and we may be justified in 
thinking that the statues of the Sieges Allee have no 
more historical reality than the mythical portraits of 
the kings of Scotland in Holyrood Palace. And Ger- 
man writers may be right in ridiculing the Kaiser for 
this debauch of statuary. Personally I do not agree 
with those writers. I am convinced that the concep- 
tion of the Sieges Allee, which entirely belongs to the 
Kaiser, is by far the cleverest thing which he has ever 
done, and also the most political. The national his- 
tory which the statues inculcate may be fictitious, 
but the Kaiser knew that this fictitious history is the 
only one which millions of Germans would be ever 
likely to get, and the only one that would seize hold 
of their imagination. 

And the same historical lesson which William has 
taught through his statues he is trying to teach 
through his speeches. The exaltation of the Hohen- 
zoUern is their one Leitmotiv, and especially the exalta- 
tion of his immediate predecessors, and, above all, 
of William "the Great," of William "the Saint.'* 
Every schoolboy knows that William was an honest, 
conscientious, well-meaning ruler, and not devoid of 
judgment, whose great merit was to efface himself 
before his Chancellor, and to give way to Bismarck's 
policy even when he did not approve of it. Every 
schoolboy knows that William's relation to Bismarck 
was very much that of Louis the Thirteenth to Riche- 



The German Kaiser 233 

lieu. But here again the Kaiser has changed our 
interpretation of history. To him the real creator of 
the new empire is neither Bismarck nor Moltke nor 
Roon. William the Second, indeed, may graciously 
condescend to speak of his grandfather's " Paladins " 
as we speak of the Knights of the Round Table, or of 
the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, but they are only 
mentioned collectively and anonymously, and it is 
significant that for many years the name of Bismarck 
has been taboo in the Kaiser's orations. 

And in the light of this fact, and of the Kaiser's 
conception of what ought to be the relation between 
a ruler and his ministers, we understand why Bismarck 
was brutally dismissed. It is now generally admitted 
that the dismissal of the Iron Chancellor was the first 
great political blunder of the Emperor. Even Louis 
the Fourteenth waited for the death of Mazarin, and 
dared not dismiss him. And Mazarin was not Bis- 
marck. Certainly it would have been an invaluable 
education to William if he could have availed himself 
for a few years of his Chancellor's experience and 
statesmanship. But it is also believed that the dis- 
missal was inevitable, because two such strong tempera- 
ments could not have worked together. We do not 
think that this is the true explanation of the catastro- 
phe ; we do not think that it was pre-eminently a case 
of one strong will pitted against another. Rather 
would we infer from what has been said before, that 
the dismissal was largely an illustration of that 
dynastic pride and jealousy to which we have just 
referred. William's objection to Bismarck was not 
his Chancellor's masterful temper — it was mainly that 
the servant was eclipsing the glory of the dynasty in 
the eyes of the people. It was urgently necessary 



234 The Anglo-German Problem 

that the servant should render unto Csesar what 
belonged to Csesar, that he should be put in his proper 
place, that the German people should realize from a 
dramatic illustration that even the greatest statesman 
is nothing except through the favour of his prince, 
and that the Hohenzollern should once more control 
the destinies of the State. 

2 . Even as their dynastic pride, so is the absolutism 
of the Hohenzollern bred in the bone, and transmitted 
with the traditions of Prussian history. A Hohen- 
zollern impatiently submits to constitutional checks. 
Most of the political difficulties and anomalies referred 
to in previous chapters are due to this one cause. 
Bismarck, in order to win over all the nations of the 
empire to Prussian hegemony, made an appeal to 
popular opinion, used universal suffrage as a lever to 
break down dynastic and particularist opinion in the 
service of the absolute monarchy of the Hohenzollern. 
But universal suffrage, once it had served its purpose 
as a plebiscite, was made innocuous, and became a 
mockery. The absolute monarchy alone remained 
a reality. 

All the Hohenzollern rulers have shown the same 
absolutist instinct ; but Frederick the Great is perhaps 
a better illustration of this despotic temper than any 
other Prussian king. His despotism may have been 
abler and more enlightened, but still it was despotism. 
Every one of his acts, public and private, illustrates 
his despotic temper. Take his relations to Voltaire. 
Frederick the Great felt a boundless admiration for 
Voltaire; he was imbued with Voltaire's spirit from 
early youth, and a correspondence of forty years, 
which was only terminated by death, proves how 
complete was the intellectual sympathy which united 



The German Kaiser 235 

the two men; the King induced the poet by every 
promise and flattery to leave his country and to make 
his residence at Potsdam: yet when Voltaire dared 
to indulge the irrepressible freedom of his genius and 
to criticize one of the favourites of his master, the 
friendship was brought to an immediate rupture, and 
the King treated with the most revolting indignity the 
very man whom he himself called the greatest genius 
of his age. 

Or take Frederick's relations to his mistresses. 
Frederick had more complete control over his feelings 
than most rulers, and certainly few kings have been 
less addicted to the tender passion; yet when he 
deigned to confer his favour on an Italian ballet-girl 
he was more unscrupulous than any Bourbon, as 
tyrannical as an Oriental potentate in the satisfaction 
of his desire. In vain did the Barberini claim the 
protection of her husband, a Scottish nobleman; in 
vain did she seek shelter in the Republic of Venice: 
Frederick compelled the Doge and Senate to surrender 
the object of his passion. The husband and wife 
were separated, and the lady was brought under 
military escort to the Palace of Sans Souci. 

William the Second possesses in its integrity the 
despotic temper of his ancestors. From the beginning 
of his reign he has shown himself impervious to criti- 
cism: "I go my way; it is the only right one" — 
** Whoever shall prove an obstacle to the realization 
of my purpose, I shall shatter" — den zerschmettere ich. 

Under the difficult conditions of a modern German 
Government a wise ruler would have welcomed free 
speech, both as a safety valve for popular discontent 
and as an indication of popular feeling; but William 
deprecates free speech and ignores it. Merely to 



236 The Anglo-German Problem 

discuss his policy is to be branded as a norgler. If he 
could, he would prosecute his critics. They would be 
condemned for lese-majeste, as poor Professor Gelfcken 
was sent to prison by Bismarck merely for having 
criticized the policy of the omnipotent Chancellor. 

One might have expected that the amazing indis- 
cretions of the Daily Telegraph interview and the 
hurricane which they roused would have sobered for 
ever the Imperial orator. For the hurricane seemed 
to shake the throne to its foundations : even the Con- 
servative leaders seemed to give up the Emperor. 
Under the pressure of public opinion, and on the 
advice of his Chancellor, William was prevailed upon 
to make a statement to the effect that in future he 
would be more reserved in the expression of his opin- 
ions. But as if to prove how light he made of that 
promise, whilst the political tempest was raging in the 
Reichstag, the Emperor went off to the Bavarian 
highlands on a shooting-party and a round of amuse- 
ments and cafes-chantant, and spent one of the busiest 
and one of the gayest holidays of his reign. After a 
few months the Konigsberg speech asserted more 
emphatically than ever his belief in absolutism, and in 
his Divine Right to rule his subjects without the 
interference or the control of a refractory Parliament. 

3. There are many different forms of absolute 
government. It may be tyrannical and force itself 
upon an unwilling people, or it may be acceptable 
to the people, like the rule of the Russian Czar, the 
"Httle father" of one hundred and fifty milHon 
moujiks. Again, it may be obscurantist, or it may be 
enlightened. It may be direct and personal, or it may 
be indirect and delegated. The absolutism of most 
wise rulers is of the latter kind. Even thus William 



The German Kaiser 237 

the First chose to exert his authority through trusty 
advisers. WilHam the Second, although never tired 
of extoUing his grandfather, does not imitate him in 
this respect; rather does he prefer to imitate Freder- 
ick WilHam the Fourth. And, like Frederick William 
the Fourth, he may eventually come to grief, if his 
reign lasts long enough for the consequences of his 
policy to mature. The Kaiser is convinced that any 
delegation of his power would amount to a surrender 
and limitation. He therefore insists on discharging his 
Imperial office directly — ''Uetat c'est moil'' Since 
Napoleon the First and Nicholas the First of Russia 
the world has not seen another example of a personal 
regime so consistent, so continuous, extending over the 
most minute details of government. 

It is needless to say that with such a despotic 
temperament William the Second is not likely to draw 
on the highest political capacity of the State. No 
statesman with a strong personality could submit to 
serving under such a master. William, therefore, is 
necessarily dependent on mediocrities, on favourites, 
for the first quality requisite is a supple and pliable 
character. He may have had able courtiers to assist 
him, but he has had few independent advisers. Count 
von Capri vi, the successor of Bismarck, was a soldier, 
accustomed to obedience; Prince von Hohenlohe was 
a broken old man of eighty; both were overthrown 
by the occult influence of the Camarilla and Round 
Table of Liebenberg. In Hohenlohe's successor the 
Kaiser was singularly fortunate, for the fourth Chan- 
cellor, Prince von Biilow, if he was not a strong man, 
was at least a man of extraordinary gifts, a virtuoso 
of diplomacy, who understood both the Kaiser and the 
people, and who for ten years maintained himself in 



238 The Anglo-German Problem 

unstable equipoise with the dexterity of a rope-dancer. 
Since Bulow was swept away in the tempest which 
followed the Daily Telegraph interview, William the 
Second has availed himself of the services of a respect- 
able bureaucrat who can be trusted to obey. The 
fifth Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, is still an 
unknown quantity, but he will certainly neither 
eclipse his Imperial master nor overrule his will ; and 
he has already proclaimed in the Reichstag that he 
does not believe in anything so absurd as parliament- 
ary government for the German Empire even in the 
most remote future. 

4. As a general rule, even as nations have the 
government they deserve, so dynasties in the long 
run deserve the influence they have. And it must be 
admitted in fairness to the Hohenzollerns that the 
predominant position they have achieved and the 
loyalty they evoke are partly justified by the services 
they have rendered to the Prussian State. The 
HohenzoUern monarchs have been traditionally dis- 
tinguished by a high sense of duty. The motto of 
Frederick the Great, '' Ich Dien,'' is characteristic of 
that tradition, and the definition of the Prussian King 
as "the first servant of the State" has become a 
household word wherever the German language is 
spoken. 

William the Second has inherited the high sense of 
duty of his ancestors. He is fully alive to the formid- 
able responsibility entailed by his exalted office. 
As nothing must happen in Europe without the con- 
sent of Germany, so nothing must happen in Germany 
without the knowledge of the Kaiser. He is a strenu- 
ous worker, omnipresent, omniscient. Whether his 
work is always profitable is another question which 



The German Kaiser 239 

the reader will have to settle for himself after reading 
the present chapter. 

5. We have already pointed out in a previous 
chapter that the HohenzoUerns are upstart princelings. 
They are the parvenus and arrivistes amongst royal 
dynasties. Notwithstanding the mythical history and 
the fantastical statuary of the Sieges Allee, they are 
but of yesterday compared to the Bourbons or Habs- 
burgs. Their phenomenal ascent from an obscure 
margraviate to Imperial power was accomplished in 
half a dozen generations. This extraordinary success 
must be largely attributed to their practical qualities 
of common-sense and judgment, which their very 
obscurity and poverty made a necessity. With the 
exception of one or two episodes displaying the heroic 
fortitude of Frederick the Great and of Queen Louise, 
after a crushing defeat, there is little which is tragic 
or romantic, or even picturesque, about the Hohen- 
zoUern family. They are all Realpolitiker, and they 
have pushed their fortunes by the same processes by 
which a clerk or artisan works his way upwards to 
become a manager or captain of industry ; and Samuel 
Smiles, the author of Self-Help, could have chosen no 
better illustration to point his utilitarian and bourgeois 
morality. 

In this respect, again, William the Second, with all 
his spurious mysticism, is a true Hohenzollern. He is 
also a realist, with an eye to the main chance, and he 
has never been embarrassed in the pursuance of his 
policy by any cumbersome chivalrous scruples. He 
appreciates every man and every idea according as 
that man or that idea may be made subservient to his 
policy. Even moral and spiritual forces, like art, 
literature, and religion, must be utilized for dynastic 



240 The Anglo-German Problem 

purposes. Art must be patriotic — that is to say, it 
must glorify the royal house; education must train 
good Prussians and good soldiers; religion must 
preach submission and loyalty to the prince. 

And because he is a realist, he is also an opportunist. 
He seems to change sides as easily as he changes his 
uniforms, according as occasion or necessity directs. 
And his meandering and tortuous statesmanship is all 
the more striking because he is so entirely unconscious 
of it. We see him in turn encouraging Kruger in his 
resistance to England at a time when resistance seemed 
likely to succeed; and after the lapse of a few years 
we see him almost brutally refusing to receive the ex- 
Presideut in the hour of disaster, as if he could have 
ingratiated himself with the British public by such 
mean conduct towards a broken and suppliant old 
man. We see him at one and the same time a pious 
pilgrim and crusader, and the intimate friend of Abdul 
Hamid, the butcher of Christian nationalities. It 
never seemed to occur to him that the way to Jeru- 
salem does not pass through Constantinople, and 
that the same ruler cannot be the self-appointed pro- 
tector of the unspeakable Turk and the protector of 
the Holy Sepulchre. 

6. There remains to point out in connection with 
the Kaiser's political characteristics the most import- 
ant trait of the Prussian dynasty, which we have 
emphasized in a previous chapter. We saw that the 
Hohenzollern is by tradition and education a militar- 
ist. It is the army which has made both the nation and 
its rulers. Other German princes might try to gain 
consequence whilst achieving bankruptcy, by appear- 
ing as patrons of art and literature, by mimicking the 
splendour of Versailles. But the Prussian dukes first 



The German Kaiser 241 

rose into political significance by making it worth 
while for other princes to seek their military support. 
They invested all their available resources in armies 
and armaments, and no investment ever proved more 
remunerative. To the Great Elector, to the Sergeant- 
King, to Frederick the Great, the army was the first 
concern of the State, and the military expenditure was 
out of all proportion to the resources of the people. 
It kept the subjects groaning under the burden of taxa- 
tion, it arrested for generations the economic develop- 
ment of the country, but it amply repaid the rulers. 
The Prussian army has suffered no diminution 
under William the Second. It remains the first pillar 
of the throne and the first concern of the prince. In 
hours of doubt and suspicion, when a disloyal Opposi- 
tion asserts itself in the Reichstag, William delights 
in escaping to Pomerania and to the Eastern Marches, 
to be strengthened by the devotion and allegiance of 
his Junkers. He knows that if it came to a conflict 
between King and Parliament he would find tens of 
thousands amongst his Ost-Elbier who would rally 
round the throne, and who would act on the policy 
of the energetic Herr von Oldenburg and disperse an 
unruly assembly at the point of the bayonet. And if 
the orators of the Opposition were to become too 
unpleasantly noisy and critical, the Emperor would 
emphatically remind them that Prussia and the Ger- 
man Empire were not created by eloquent speeches, 
but by the heroism of German soldiers. 

II 

The Personal Idiosyncrasies of the Kaiser 

We have tried to set out in full relief the impress of 
the HohenzoUern tradition and heredity. But it 
16 



242 The Anglo-German Problem 

would be to convey an entirely wrong idea of the 
Kaiser to represent him as a mere replica of a general 
type. Whether he is a strong man or not, it will be 
for the reader to judge. One thing is certain, that he 
is a personality, that he has a decided originality, and 
that his individual idiosyncrasies are so striking that 
they sometimes almost seem to obliterate the family 
likeness. 

1. The first trait we associate with the Kaiser 
is that of an impulsive and irrepressible sovereign. 
He is rash, spirited, and impatient of control. This 
trait is partly the result of his temperament. It is the 
result of his virtues as much as of his defects. It is 
the result of the sincerity and spontaneity of his dis- 
position. But it is also the outcome of circumstances. 
In consequence of the tragic death of his father he was 
unexpectedly called to the throne in early youth. 
He was not compelled to serve a long apprenticeship 
as heir-apparent, like his father or his grandfather, 
or like his uncle, Edward the Seventh. Nor was he 
compelled, like Frederick the Great, to disguise his 
inmost feelings. He was free to indulge to the full the 
tendencies of his nature at an age when passions are 
strongest, and he had not sat on the throne for two 
years when his dismissal of Bismarck removed the last 
obstacle to his imperious will. 

2. The impulsiveness of the Kaiser expresses itself 
equally in his words and in his deeds, in his indiscre- 
tions and in his tactlessness. The distinction between 
his words and his deeds is perhaps more formal than 
real, because every word of the Emperor is equivalent 
to a deed. The most insignificant of his utterances 
may bind or compromise the nation in whose name 
he speaks. It is unnecessary to point out that the 



The German Kaiser 243 

indiscretions of William have been innumerable. He 
is the irresponsible talker and speech-maker on the 
throne. There has hardly been a crisis in contempo- 
rary German history which cannot be traced to one 
of the " winged words " of William, and their conse- 
quences have often been incalculable. They partly 
explain the failure of German foreign policy; they 
explain how in recent years, with every trump card 
in her hand, Germany has on the whole achieved few 
substantial results. 

3. The Kaiser has a restless temperament. He 
seems to be perpetual motion incarnate, and his rest- 
lessness at times almost assumes a morbid character, 
and has often been connected with the hereditary 
nervous complaint from which the Kaiser suffers. 
One of his earliest critics. Professor Quidde, in the 
famous Caligula pamphlet, of which five hundred 
thousand copies were circulated in a few weeks, drew 
a parallel between William and the degenerate Roman 
Emperor, and emphasized the pathological nature of 
his case. 

Certainly the travelling habit in William the Second 
amounts to a mania. No European sovereign is so 
constantly on the move by sea and by land. Whilst 
William the First has been defined the ''Greise Kaiser,'' 
whilst Frederick the Third has been called the ** Weise 
Kaiser/' William the Second has been nicknamed the 
" Reise Kaiser.'' His perpetual displacements may 
be partly explained by his keen intellectual curiosity 
and his genuine love of the sea, but they are mainly the 
result of a constitutional disposition. They certainly 
are not justified by political necessity. Political 
reasons may explain some of his journeys, but more 
frequently political necessity would urgently demand 



244 The Anglo-German Problem 

his remaining in the capital. Considering how much 
Germany is a centralized government, and how much 
depends on the personal presence of his Majesty, it is 
not easy to imagine how the policy of the German 
Empire can have been directed for twenty-five years 
by an absentee ruler, issuing his commands from the 
North Cape or the Mediterranean or the Adriatic. 

4. The Kaiser's restlessness is not only physical 
but it is also mental, and one of the forms which it 
takes is his abnormal versatility. As he is unable to 
remain in the same spot for two days on end, so he is 
unable to concentrate on the same topic. He changes 
his interests from day to day. He claims universal 
competency. His authority is not confined to the 
sphere of government, to matters of the army or 
navy or foreign policy. Every problem, human and 
divine, comes within his ken. He is an architect and 
an artist, and has drawn the famous cartoons illus- 
trating the Yellow Peril. He has given his support to, 
or withheld it from, various schools of painting or lit- 
erature. He has assisted Direktor Bode in deciding 
which works of art are genuine and which spurious. 
He has appeared as a Biblical critic, and has lectured 
Professor Dehtsch on the Bible-Babel controversy. 
He has pronounced his verdict in the great battle 
between classical and modern languages, and he has 
declared in favour of a modern education. He has 
appeared as an authority on aeronautics, and has pro- 
claimed Count Zeppelin the greatest German of the 
century. 

5. In the sphere of politics the Kaiser's versatility 
has brought in its train political instability. His 
changeableness is not that of the realist and opportun- 
ist who adapts himself to circumstances; rather is it 



The German Kaiser 245 

that of the despot who follows the inspiration of the 
moment. No ruler has so often altered his opinions 
on persons and events. Again and again he has with- 
drawn his favour from statesmen or advisers who 
hitherto had enjoyed his absolute confidence. When 
a man has served his purpose he discards him. And 
as he is constantly changing his personal interest in 
men, so he is constantly shifting his political point of 
view. He has been in turn Anglophile and Franco- 
phile, Turcophile and Russophile. He has no guiding 
principles in foreign policy, and he has imparted to 
German diplomacy that incoherence which has been 
its main weakness in the last generation. 

6. It is extraordinary that after all the mistakes 
he has made, and all the disappointments he has suf- 
fered, he should not have been sobered by events, and 
that his checkered reign should not have made him 
into a cynic and a sceptic. But the Kaiser remains an 
optimist. He hates and despises pessimists. He has 
enthusiasms rather than enthusiasm. He is always 
speaking in superlatives ; and he continues to be brim- 
ful of youth. He makes us forget that he has ruled 
the empire for a quarter of a century. We still think 
of this father and grandfather of a patriarchal family, 
sufficiently numerous to fill all the thrones of Europe, 
as if he were a young man. And, in fact, he still 
possesses all his early juvenile exuberance. 

7. His optimism may be due to his superabundant 
vitality, but it is due even more to his healthy and 
superb egotism, to his unshaken belief in himself. 
He has no misgivings; he is not addicted to intro- 
spective moods. He is not like the Danish prince, 
"sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Even 
though the whole of Germany were of one opinion, 



246 The Anglo-German Problem 

once William has made up his mind he would continue 
to think that he was right; always reserving to him- 
self the privilege of changing the right opinion of to- 
day into the wrong opinion of to-morrow. He is not 
in the least likely to commit suicide, as Frederick the 
Great threatened to do after a severe defeat. Nor is 
he likely to abdicate, as William the First threatened 
to again and again. When Maximilian Harden de- 
manded his abdication, after the Daily Telegraph 
crisis in 1908, the famous journalist only proved how 
little he understood either the temper of the Kaiser or 
that of his people. 

8. The Kaiser's egotism, which might have been 
dangerous to himself and might have induced the fate 
of Louis the Second of Bavaria, is tempered by his 
delightful vanity. All those who have approached him 
agree that it is vanity rather than pride which char- 
acterizes the Kaiser. Vanity may be the charac- 
teristic of a weak man, yet to a ruler like William 
the Second vanity is rather a source of strength than a 
cause of weakness. For the proud man is satisfied 
with his own approval. Pride would have isolated 
William on the pinnacle of power. The vain man 
depends on the applause of others. The Kaiser's 
vanity has brought him nearer to his subjects, has 
made him more human and more sociable. 

But there is one evil consequence of the Kaiser's 
unbounded vanity — namely, that it places him at the 
mercy of unscrupulous flatterers. All despots are 
exposed to that danger, but strong characters and 
enhghtened rulers, Hke Frederick the Second, realizing 
the danger, deHberately invite criticism, and surround 
themselves with able advisers. William the Second 
has generally been surrounded with courtiers and 



The German Kaiser 247 

sycophants. Biilow stated at the time of the Harden- 
Moltke trial that a ''camarilla in Germany was 
unthinkable, that it was a poisonous exotic growth 
which could never thrive on German soil." Impartial 
students of contemporary German history know that 
it has thriven only too luxuriantly. All the Kaiser's 
independent biographers agree in emphasizing the 
fact that flatterers alone have a chance at the Court of 
Berlin, and that as nobody dares criticize the Kaiser's 
opinions, and as everybody is compelled to indulge 
his whims and prejudices, the field is left clear for 
courtiers of the Eulenburg and Waldersee type. 

9. The boundless egotism combined with the 
despotic temper, the vanity of a comparatively weak 
and amiable and sociable sovereign depending on ap- 
plause, have been indulged for so many years that in 
the course of time they have degenerated into megalo- 
mania. In a Wittelsbach prince such megalomania 
would have led to madness. In the Hohenzollern it 
has only resulted in extravagance. That extravagance 
expresses itself in a thousand ways, especially in such 
striking manifestations as his fifty residences or his 
three hundred uniforms. It is characteristic of the 
Kaiser's total absence of humour that with his ex- 
travagant habits he is constantly preaching the simple 
life. It would have been well for him if he had prac- 
tised a little more what he preaches, and if he had 
followed a little more the example of his ancestor, 
Frederick the Great, for he would have escaped the 
financial worries which have been his lot from the 
beginning of his reign. The Kaiser ought to be 
the richest man in his empire — his civil list has been 
repeatedly increased — yet William finds himself in an 
almost chronic state of bankruptcy, and his close 



248 The Anglo-German Problem 

relations with American millionaires and Jewish 
financiers have not sufficed to relieve him of his 
anxieties. 

10. The Kaiser's megalomania also explains the 
theatrical aspects of his personality. All sovereigns 
love to surround themselves with the pomp and cir- 
cumstance of the throne. Without it half of their 
prestige would vanish, and only giants like Frederick 
the Second or Napoleon could afford simplicity of dress 
and manner. But there is in the Kaiser something 
more than the ordinary love of splendour. There is 
something almost histrionic and Neronian in his 
composition — qualis artifex! The Kaiser loves to 
astonish, to dazzle his subjects. His appearances and 
his poses are those of an Imperial actor, and are always 
studiously calculated to produce a sensation. Hence 
his surprise visits, his startling appearances in regi- 
mental barracks in the dead of night or in the early 
morning; hence his Eastern journeys; hence, es- 
pecially, the extraordinary importance he attaches to 
the ritual of dress and uniform. William the Second 
is obviously a believer in the clothes philosophy of 
Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. No man will understand 
the Kaiser who does not attach as much importance 
to this side of his character as he does himself. It has 
been said that the Kaiser has such a nice perception of 
the fitness of things in this matter that when he visits 
an aquarium he thinks it necessary to put on the 
uniform of an admiral, and that when he eats an 
English plum pudding he thinks it necessary to don 
the uniform of the Dragoon Guards. Certainly the 
three hundred uniforms of Kaiser William will be- 
come as legendary in German history as the simple 
threadbare coat of Frederick the Great. 



The German Kaiser 249 

1 1 . The love of the sensational and the theatrical 
also explains the so-called romanticism of William. 
Although he has often been compared to Lohengrin, 
his is by no means the romanticism of Wagner. He 
makes no appeal to the emotions or to the imagination, 
but only appeals to the senses. He may not be imper- 
vious to certain aspects of poetry: some of his utter- 
ances, like the speech on Drake and the Pacific, are 
distinctly poetical. But as a rule William's roman- 
ticism is mainly a certain Sinn fur das Ailssere — a love 
for external splendour. 

The same superficial romanticism explains his love 
of the past. It is not the outcome of any settled 
principles, of any theoretical mediasvalism ; it is not 
the love of the good old times, when a prince could act 
as he pleased. William finds himself perfectly at home 
in the present times, and he probably realizes that a 
German emperor to-day has more power than he would 
have had in the Middle Ages ; for in the Middle Ages he 
would have had to divide his power with the Pope, 
and he would have found his abbots and prelates less 
pliable than his Excellency Professor von Harnack 
or the Most Reverend Dr. Dryander. Still, the 
Middle Ages with their burgraves and margraves are 
decidedly more picturesque than our commonplace 
latter days. And the Kaiser loves to think that the 
Hohenzollern is the lineal successor of the Hohenstau- 
fen and of the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne. 

12. "Tell me what a man believes, and I shall tell 
you what he is, " is an often quoted saying of Carlyle. 
We may safely apply this criterion to the psychology 
of the Kaiser. For his religion is part of his per- 
sonality, and, like his personality, it has often been 
misunderstood. We are continuously told that he is a 



250 The Anglo-German Problem 

Christian mystic. But, indeed, there is in his dis- 
position little of the Christian and still less of the 
mystic. It is true that he delights in preaching 
sermons because he has a natural gift of speech, but he 
delights in preaching just as he dehghts in yachting, 
drawing, and painting. He has none of the Inner- 
lichkeit, none of the sense of mystery, which charac- 
terizes the genuine mystic. And he has as little of the 
humility and of the sense of sin which characterizes 
the genuine Christian. The Kaiser's Christianity is 
essentially political; it is that of most despots who 
have used religion for political purposes. Christianity 
is useful to fight the enemies of the empire, and in these 
days of social unrest the altar is the necessary prop of 
the throne. 

I believe that to bind all our fellow-citizens, all our classes 
together, there is only one means, and that is Religion — not, in- 
deed, religion understood in a narrow, ecclesiastical, and dogmatic 
sense, but in a wider, more practical sense, with relation to life. 
(August 31, 1907.) 

I expect from you all that you will all help me, priests and lay- 
men, to maintain religion in the people. Whoever does not 
establish his life on the foundation of religion is lost, and therefore 
I will pledge myself to-day to place my whole empire, my people, 
my army, symbolically represented through this staff of command, 
myself and my family, under the Cross and its protection. (June 
19, 1902.) 

His religion is a religion of authority. It is political 
and social. Religion, indeed, is the sanction of all 
political authority and citizenship. 

Nobody can be a good soldier if he is not at the same time a 
good Christian. The recruits who have given the oath of alle- 
giance to myself, as to their earthly lord, must above all preserve 
their allegiance to their heavenly Lord and Saviour. As the 



The German Kaiser 251 

crown is nothing without the altar and the crucifix, so the army is 
nothing without the Christian rehgion. (November, 1896.) 

The title of Bossuet's famous treatise, Politics Based 
on Holy Scripture, might sum up the Emperor's 
political creed. Politics must be based on religion; 
they are bound up with it. The Kaiser believes in 
an ever-present Providence, and he believes that Pro- 
vidence has chosen the German people as His people, 
and has chosen the Hohenzollerns as His rulers. He 
has never doubted that he is the vicegerent appointed 
by God Almighty to carry out His will. Never did 
medieval Pope believe more absolutely in his divine 
mission : 

. . . in a kingdom by the grace of God, with its responsi- 
bility to the Creator above, from which no man, no minister, no 
parliament can absolve the sovereign. (August, 1897.) 

I see in the people and in the country that I have inherited a 
talent entrusted to me by God, which it is my duty to increase. 
(March, 1890.) 

In our house we consider ourselves as . . . appointed by God 
to direct and to lead the nations over which it has been given us 
to rule to a higher state of well-being, to the improvement of their 
material and spiritual interests. (April, 1890.) 

You know that I consider my whole office and duty as imposed 
on me by Heaven, and that I have been called in the service of 
the Highest, to whom I shall have to render one day an account 
of my trust, (February, 1891.) 

The best proof that the Kaiser's religion is mainly 
political is that in matters of religion his tolerance 
verges on laxity. In matters political — that is to say, 
in matters where men generally are tolerant — he is 



252 The Anglo-German Problem 

narrow and intolerant. On the contrary, in matters 
religious, where a deeply religious mind is almost 
inevitably narrow, the Kaiser is marvellously broad- 
minded. Ex officio he is a Lutheran; he is the de- 
fender of the Lutheran faith. At the same time his 
sympathies are Catholic, and he has never missed an 
opportunity of expressing his admiration for a religion 
which stands for authority and discipline. He also 
combines a profound sympathy for Mohammedanism. 
Being thus equally and impartially sympathetic to 
Lutheranism, Catholicism, and Mohammedanism, 
like a very Nathan the Wise, or like a modern indiffer- 
ent sceptic, he only happens to be intolerant of the one 
form of Christianity which does not favour his des- 
potic policy. In the famous speech against Stocker 
he expresses his abhorrence for democratic Christianity 
and Christian Socialism. Yet who can doubt that 
Christian Socialism is one of the most genuine forms 
of Christianity, and that Pastor Stocker, whom 
William so fiercely denounces, is on the whole a more 
fervid Christian than the official court chaplains of 
his Majesty? 

Ill 

William the Second 'and the Tendencies of the Age 

We have said enough to convince the reader that the 
Kaiser is an extraordinarily interesting and complex 
personality, and that even had he been born a private 
man he would certainly not have been lost in the 
crowd. But however much he may appeal to our cu- 
rosity as an individual, even more interesting to us is 
the practical question: What is the Kaiser's relation 
to his people and to his age? 



The German Kaiser 253 

Certain characteristics of his seem to be emphati- 
cally in opposition to the age we live in, and in many 
respects the Kaiser strikes us as a hving anachronism. 
And this fact might explain the frequent opposition 
he has roused. If that be so, the problem arises: 
Does this opposition express the substance of his 
character, and will that opposition not gather strength 
as the German people more fully realize how entirely 
their government is out of date and ill-adapted to 
the requirements of the times? And is the Kaiser 
indeed against the times ? Is he, if I may use the ex- 
pression of Nietzsche, '' Unzeitgemaess'' ? Is the 
Kaiser the strong man of Ibsen, who dares to stand 
alone, and, like a Titan, resists the onslaught of 
democracy ? 

If we were to believe the Kaiser's own interpretation 
of himself we would have to answer in the affirmative. 
Again and again he has thrown out a challenge to 
German democracy. *'I follow my own course, it is 
the right one" — "There is only one who is master in 
the empire, and that is I; I shall brook no other" 
(May, 1 89 1 ) — are the burden of many a speech. B ut if 
our diagnosis of the Kaiser's characteristics is correct, 
and if our analysis of the political situation is accurate, 
such an interpretation would be entirely misleading. 
The Kaiser is not the Titan who stands in solitary 
grandeur and who waits until the tide of democracy 
overwhelms him. He lacks the essentials of the 
strong man. The strong man is characterized by 
self-restraint, and we have seen that the Emperor 
remains incurably impulsive. A strong man is 
characterized by calmness and repose, and the Em- 
peror is always agitated. A strong man is character- 
ized by wisdom, and the Emperor is again and 



254 The Anglo-German Problem 

again carried away by his passions. A strong 
man is reticent, and the German Emperor is in- 
discreet and tactless. On the other hand, it is not 
true that he stands alone. He only leads when he is 
sure to have a large following. And when it is neces- 
sary he is himself content to follow. He is pliable 
and impressionable and sensitive to every passing 
mood of public opinion, and he has an almost morbid 
craving for applause and popularity. 

So far from being a mediaeval Holy Roman Emperor 
he is the most modern of rulers. He is possessed with 
the ambition of his people and the aspirations of his 
age, and his political wisdom is directed not towards 
the past but towards the future. 

I . In the first place he incarnates the Imperialistic 
materialism of the latter-day German. This sover- 
eign so often described as mediaeval is almost American 
in his tastes and sympathies. He delights in receiving 
African and Yankee millionaires like Cecil Rhodes and 
Mr. Pierpont Morgan. He delights in associating 
with captains of industry like Krupp, and in honour- 
ing Jewish bankers, much to the disgust of his Prussian 
Junkers. He refuses to accept, as American ambas- 
sador, Mr. Hill, simply because, although rich in 
mental gifts and in a world-wide fame, the diplomat 
is not, in the opinion of the Kaiser, sufficiently rich 
in the material goods of this world worthily to repre- 
sent his countrymen at a magnificent court like the 
Court of Berlin. 

So thoroughly is the Kaiser steeped in materialism 
that intellectual and moral values count very little 
with him. He has made many a speech in Konigsberg, 
but he has never mentioned the most illustrious citizen 
of Konigsberg, Immanuel Kant. He has glorified 



The German Kaiser 255 

Count Zeppelin as the greatest German of the nine- 
teenth century, but I do not remember that he has 
ever mentioned the name of Goethe. It is true that 
he sent a telegram of sympathy to Mr. Rudyard 
Kipling during his illness in America; but then he 
sympathizes with Mr. Kipling not because he is a 
great writer and poet, but because he is an Imperialist. 

No modern ruler except King Leopold of Belgium 
has more constantly kept in view the material interests 
of his subjects. Where his speeches do not deal with 
his own august personality, they deal largely with the 
commercial expansion of the empire. When he is not 
concerned about the needs of the fighting navy, he is 
concerned with the needs of the merchant service. 

The Emperor may certainly claim a large share 
in the promotion of the naval expansion of modern 
Germany. It might almost be said that although 
love for the army is traditional in his house, that love 
is even surpassed by his love for the navy. It seems 
as if there were something more personal and more 
intimate in the Kaiser's attachment to the navy. It is 
the love of the parent for the child. The army he has 
inherited from his ancestors. The navy, on the con- 
trary, is his own creation. Naval expansion dates from 
his reign. It was he who first told the Germans that 
their future was on the water : ' ' Unsere Zukunft ist 
auf dem Wasser." It was he who first offered them 
new oceans to conquer. The water seems to be the 
Kaiser's favourite element. He is an indefatigable 
yachtsman ; he travels by sea even more than by land ; 
he has advocated naval expansion more consistently 
and more passionately than any other cause. Again 
and again he has proclaimed that * ' a prosperous devel- 
opment of the Vaterland is not conceivable without a 



256 The Anglo-German Problem 

continuous reinforcement of its sea power "(December, 
1902). 

2. We have dwelt on the megalomania of the 
Kaiser. But his countrymen are not as unpleasantly 
impressed by this aspect of the Kaiser's character as 
we are ourselves, because his megalomania is often only 
the expression of that of his people. A Hungarian 
writer, the late Dr. Emil Reich, has written a book on 
Germany's Swelled Head, and there can be no doubt 
that the German people in the last generation have 
become intoxicated with their political and commercial 
triumphs. When the Kaiser says: "The ocean proves 
that without Germany and without a German Kaiser 
no great discussion shall henceforth take place. I am 
not inclined to think that our German people have 
fought and vanquished thirty-three years ago, under 
the leadership of their princes, merely to be shoved 
aside in the great issues of a world policy," such 
utterances send a thrill through every jingo heart. 

3. In the same way his egotism and self-assertion 
and his brutality, offensive as they may appear to us, 
only reflect the self-assertion and aggressiveness of the 
latter-day Teuton. When he shakes the mailed fist, 
when he warns his enemies, when he goes to Tangier 
or to Constantinople, he has the hearty and unanimous 
support of his subjects, with the exception of the 
Socialists. 

And, generally speaking, it is because the Kaiser 
is so thoroughly modern and so thoroughly German 
that he has received in such an ample measure the 
applause for which he craves. He may be unpopular 
with the educated upper ten thousand, who read the 
political satires of Simplicissimus, but he is popular 
with the millions who read Die Woche. He is popular 



The German Kaiser 257 

because he is representative of the modern German 
people. He may often have blundered, but he under- 
stands the soul of the mob. He may be self-willed and 
indulge his impulses, but those impulses generally are 
also the impulses of his subjects; and it must be said 
in justice to the Kaiser that too often he has been 
blamed for the indiscretions of the German people. 

There can be no doubt as to the enormous influence 
and popularity of the Kaiser. But there have been 
many misunderstandings between him and his sub- 
jects. The most serious was no doubt that which 
followed the publication of the Daily Telegraph inter- 
view. Any outsider who would have formed his 
judgment mainly from the speeches delivered in the 
Reichstag on that occasion would have been justified 
in predicting an imminent revolution. He would have 
concluded that the Emperor had, like a reckless spend- 
thrift, squandered the rich inheritance of loyalty and 
devotion handed down from his ancestors, and that 
there remained nothing for him to do but abdicate. 
Fortunately for the Kaiser, political speeches in 
Germany have not the same significance and do not 
carry the same weight as in England, and the storm 
which swept over Germany in 1908, so far from being 
an argument proving the decline of the Kaiser's power, 
only tested and attested his strength. Surely a 
formidable storm is the best criterion whether a tree 
is firmly rooted in the soil. And a power which stood 
the hurricane of 1908 will stand almost anything. A 
ruler who emerged from that crisis more popular than 
ever can look confidently to the future. 

It must be carefully noted that that popularity has 
not been bought or maintained at the sacrifice of one 
jot or tittle of his Imperial claims. Prince von Bulow 
17 



258 The Anglo-German Problem 

may have made platonic concessions, but the Kaiser 
maintained his Imperial prerogative undiminished, 
and in no previous utterances has he asserted his 
Divine Right more emphatically than in the speeches 
which followed the crisis of 1908. After twenty-five 
years of reign, and after grievous mistakes, the Kaiser 
finds himself to-day stronger than when he ascended 
the throne in 1888. After twenty-five years he is a 
greater force in world politics than any other states- 
man or ruler living. 



IV 



Is the Influence of the Kaiser Making for 
Peace or for War? 

We must now approach the final problem which 
presents itself to our consideration : Is the tremendous 
power and popularity of the Kaiser exercised in the 
direction of peace or in the direction of war ? 

To an Englishman the Kaiser's devotion to military 
pursuits, his frequent brandishing of the sword, his 
aggressive policy of naval expansion, seem to be in 
flagrant contradiction with his no less persistent 
protests of both his sympathy for England and of his 
love for peace. We are reminded that Napoleon the 
Third also delighted to express his love for peace — 
*' L' Empire c'est la paix" — yet he brought about the 
most disastrous war in French history. We are 
reminded that Nicholas the Second of Russia also 
started his reign as the peacemaker of Europe, the 
initiator of the Conference of The Hague, yet he 
brought about the most bloody war in Russian history. 
Are the Kaiser's pacific protests as futile, are his 



The German Kaiser 259 

sympathies as hollow, as those of a Napoleon or a 
Nicholas ? 

With regard to his sympathies for England we can 
only say that there are no reasons to doubt his sin- 
cerity. His upbringing has been largely English, and 
his mother. Empress Frederick, was nicknamed the 
' ' English Woman. ' ' The most pleasant reminiscences 
of his childhood are associated with his visits to his 
grandmother at Windsor or at the Isle of Wight. 
And he has retained his English tastes, his love for 
sport, his love of the sea. He has not confined himself 
to expressing platonic sympathies for England. 
Those sympathies have often been supported by 
active demonstrations, and by demonstrations which 
have demanded no small measure of courage. We 
may blame the Kaiser for the Daily Telegraph inter- 
view, we may all agree in considering it a masterpiece 
of indiscretion, yet we must admire the moral courage 
with which the Kaiser dared to support the unpopular 
cause. 

And similarly, with regard to the Kaiser's protests 
of peace we have no reason to doubt that he is per- 
fectly genuine. We ought to believe him, if for no 
other reason than this, that a peaceful policy is in 
the obvious interest of the Kaiser and his dynasty. 
Whatever may be the future policy of German jingo- 
ism, the Kaiser certainly does not want war. For he 
has nothing to gain from war, and everything to lose. 
The tragedy of the Russo-Japanese War has taught 
him the terrible chances of the battlefield. It would 
be senseless for him to jeopardize, with a light heart, 
the magnificent empire inherited from his ancestors. 
And if any one were inclined to wonder at the strange 
combination of militarism and pacifism in the 



26o The Anglo-German Problem 

Kaiser's mind, he has only to remember that one of 
the most original kings of Prussia also combined an 
almost morbid passion for soldiers with an inveterate 
love for peace. The Sergeant-King, the father of 
Frederick the Great, who collected tall grenadiers as 
others would collect art treasures, retained all through 
life a wholesome dread of war, because he would not 
expose himself to the risk of losing or damaging the 
splendid army which he had spent his lifetime in 
organizing. 

Unfortunately, if the Kaiser's protests of peace are 
supported by many of his utterances, and sanctioned 
by the interests of his dynasty, they are contradicted 
not only by many other utterances, but, what is 
more serious, they are contradicted by his personal 
methods, and above all, by the whole trend of his 
general policy. 

Very few observers have pointed out one special 
reason why the personal methods of the Kaiser will 
prove in the end dangerous to peace — namely, that 
they have tended to paralyse or destroy the methods 
of diplomacy. 

I am not by any means enamoured of the tone 
and spirit of the present diplomatic profession. The 
diplomatic service to-day in most countries is largely 
recruited from the upper ten thousand: it is largely 
composed of grandees imbued with the pride of caste. 
Its members are chosen not for their intellectual or 
moral qualities, but mainly for their social position. 
The diplomatic service is the stronghold of reaction: 
it is steeped in the vapid atmosphere of "society"; 
it is anti-national and anti- patriotic; it constitutes 
an international freemasonry of cynical and sceptical 
reactionaries. 



The German Kaiser 261 

But little as we may like the personnel of legations 

and embassies, strongly as we disapprove of the 
methods by which they are recruited, urgent as is the 
reform of the Foreign Office, it remains no less true 
that the function of diplomacy is more vital to-day 
than it ever was in the past. For it is of the very 
purpose and raison d'etre of diplomacy to be concilia- 
tory and pacific. Its object is to achieve by persua- 
sion and negotiation what otherwise must be left to 
the arbitrament of war. It is a commonplace on the 
part of Radicals to protest against the practices of 
occult diplomacy. In so far as that protest is directed 
against the spirit which animates the members of the 
diplomatic service, it is fully justified. But in so 
far as it is directed against the principle of secret 
negotiation the protest is absurd. For it is of the very 
essence of diplomacy that it shall be secret, that it 
shall be left to experts, that it shall be removed from 
the heated atmosphere of popular assemblies, and 
that it shall substitute an appeal to intellect and 
reason for the appeal to popular emotion and popular 
prejudice. 

For that reason it is deeply to be regretted that 
the personal interferences of the Kaiser have taken 
German diplomacy out of the hands of negotiators 
professionally interested in a peaceful solution of in- 
ternational difficulties, and have indirectly brought 
diplomacy under the influence of the German ''pa- 
triot" and the jingo. An ambassador need not de- 
pend on outside approval, his work is done in quiet 
and solitude. The Kaiser, on the contrary, conducts 
his foreign policy in the glaring limelight of publicity ; 
and whenever he has been criticized by experts, his 
vanity has only too often been tempted to appeal to 



262 The Anglo-German Problem 

popular passion and to gain popular applause. For 
that reason, and entirely apart from his indiscretions, 
the bare fact that the Kaiser has become his own For- 
eign Secretary has lessened the chances of peace. 

Nor has the whole trend of his domestic policy been 
less injurious to the cause of peace. In vain does the 
Kaiser assure us of his pacific intentions : a ruler can- 
not with impunity glorify for ever the wars of the past, 
spend most of the resources of his people on the prep- 
arations for the wars of the future, encourage the war- 
like spirit, make the duel compulsory on officers and 
the mensur honourable to students, place his chief 
trust in his Junkers, who live and move and have their 
being in the game of war, foster the aggressive spirit 
in the nation, and hold out ambitions which can be 
fulfilled only by an appeal to arms : a ruler cannot for 
ever continue to sow the dragon's teeth and reap 
only harvests of yellow grain and golden grapes. 

For those reasons also English public opinion is 
fully justified in distrusting the policy of the Kaiser. 
After all, like any ordinary mortal, his Majesty must 
submit to being judged not merely by his words, or 
his sympathies, or his platonic intentions, but by his 
deeds, by his spirit, and by his ideals. And neither 
those deeds, nor that spirit, nor those ideals, repre- 
sentative as they are of those of his subjects, are 
calculated to inspire us with any excessive confidence 
in the future. 



CONCLUSION 

There are many types of political fatalism, repre- 
sented by many different temperaments and proceed- 
ing from many different attitudes to life, and yet 
conducing in the end to very similar results. 

There is the fatalism of the optimist. It may be 
the optimism of the cynic, of the easy-going and listless 
man of the world, or it may be the optimism of the 
idealist, of the religious enthusiast. They will all 
agree in telling us that war is impossible; that it is a 
monstrous anachronism; that we need not divert our 
attention from our peaceful avocations to ward off a 
danger which may be purely imaginary, and may exist 
only in the brain of scaremongers and alarmists; that 
sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and that the 
pressing evils of to-day are our social and political 
sores — that those must have a first claim on our atten- 
tion; that we ought to leave a delicate subject alone, 
and that in the very interests of peace the less we 
think about war the better. They tell us that God 
in His providence will help us, and that we somehow 
shall muddle through; that, at any rate, there can be 
no harm in letting things drift. For must not the 
drift and tendency of twentieth-century civilization be 
towards progress and peace and the brotherhood of 
nations ? 

On the other hand, we are confronted with the 
263 



264 The Anglo-German Problem 

political fatalism of the pessimist, which must neces- 
sarily be less varied and more definite than that of 
the optimist. Whereas the one tells us that war is 
impossible, the other proclaims that war is inevitable, 
that things have gone too far, that all the forces of 
to-day — the "will to power" of a hundred million 
German people believing in the providential mission 
of their race and dreaming the noble dream of a 
Greater Germany controlling the destinies of contin- 
ental Europe, the personality of the Kaiser, the pro- 
fessional interests of the military caste, the vested 
interests of the industrial class, the perverted patriot- 
ism of the jingo, the dread of Socialism — that all those 
forces, the noblest as well as the basest, are working 
for war. We are told that it is no use struggling 
against the inevitable, and that the boldest and most 
heroic course is also the safest; that we must look the 
danger full in the face; that if war is to come, and 
because war is certain to come, it is best to anticipate 
it and to fight at our own time and on our own ground. 
Considering the present international situation 
and the temper of the German people and the policy 
of the German Government, one might be tempted to 
accept the premises of the pessimist, if history had not 
again and again given the lie to previous prophecies, 
if experience did not show us that again and again wars 
have been declared to be inevitable which yet have 
been avoided by the goodwill and common-sense of the 
people. Within living memory, France and England, 
France and Germany, England and Russia have in 
turn repeatedly prepared to plunge into war, because 
those nations mutually accused each other in their 
metaphorical phraseology of stealing one of the 
numberless "keys" which unlocked one of the num- 



Conclusion 265 

berless "gates" which opened on those nations' 
possessions — keys of India, keys of Egypt, gates of the 
Mediterranean, gates of the Black Sea, gates of the 
Pacific. According to the political prophets, Eng- 
land was doomed to wage war against France, the 
** hereditary enemy," about Siam, or about Fashoda, 
or about West Africa. Similarly England was 
doomed to wage war against Russia, who was also the 
"hereditary enemy," because the Russian advance in 
Asia threatened India, because Russia had occupied 
near the Persian frontier the barren oasis of Merv, 
which induced periodical fits of '' Mervousness'' in 
the British public. Let any reader consult news- 
paper files of the last twenty years, and he will find 
that they teem with such scares and alarms and 
prophecies of war. Yet none of those wars so con- 
fidently prophesied have come about, and for forty- 
two years Continental Powers have lived in peace with 
each other. It is true that the peace has been lament- 
ably precarious — that it has been a truce of menacing 
hosts transforming Europe into a huge armed encamp- 
ment; but still even an armed truce with all its 
burdens is better than actual war with all its horrors. 
We must therefore be careful before we accept the 
premises of the pessimistic fatalist. And even if 
those premises were correct, his practical conclusions 
would not be justified. To say that war is unavoid- 
able does not suffice to prove that it is for us to declare 
it. As long as there is the remotest chance of avoiding 
war, it would be criminal to transform a dread pro- 
bability into a grim certainty. And even the argu- 
ment that the attack would, strategically, be more 
favourable than the defence cannot be accepted; for 
the awful responsibility of initiating a fratricidal war 



266 The Anglo-German Problem 

would not in the long run be found to be a source of 
strength, and the odium incurred by the aggressor 
would more than counterbalance the strategic advant- 
ages of the offensive. On the one hand, the attacked 
nation would thereby be animated with the energy 
of despair, and, on the other hand, the attacking 
nation would forfeit the moral support of the civilized 
world. 

It may be true that the present outlook is so gloomy 
as to justify the worst anticipations of the pessimist. 
We would even go so far as to say that war is actually 
unavoidable, if the present forces continued to be 
operative ; if the world continues to be given over to 
territorial greed and overweening pride, to national 
selfishness, to perverted patriotism, and to imbecile 
ignorance. But, then, those forces making for war 
may be neutralized, those motives may be altered, for 
they are based, to use the expression of Mr. Angell, 
on an "optical illusion"; for the whole fabric of 
military Imperialism rests on groundless assumptions. 
Let us prove to the man in the street the reality of that 
illusion, the baselessness of those assumptions, and 
the nightmare of war must vanish. 

War can be avoided, but on those terms alone, and 
not on any other. War cannot be avoided merely by 
the tactics of diplomacy, by the time-honoured and 
time-worn devices of secret negotiations. The re- 
peated "conversations" between England and Ger- 
many have invariably led, and must inevitably have 
led, to a deadlock. War cannot be avoided unless for 
the military ideals of the past we substitute the new 
ideals of our industrial civilization. War cannot be 
avoided so long as both the people and their rulers 
believe that war may be a fruitful source of material 



Conclusion 2^^ 

and moral blessings, that it is not in itself evil, that 
it calls out the noblest traits of human character, and 
that it is to a successful war rather than to industry 
and honest hard work that a nation must look in 
order to reach the pinnacle of prosperity. 

Nothing could well be more shallow, more dishonest 
and contradictory, and therefore more futile than the 
arguments of the average English journalist contro- 
verting our German neighbours; nothing could be 
more dishonest, because the English journalist de- 
nounces the new German Imperialism of Mr. Houston 
Stewart Chamberlain, whilst in the same breath 
extolling the old English Imperialism of Mr. Joseph 
Chamberlain — because he tells the German public that 
"Greater Germany" is bad, whilst at the same time 
he tells the English public that "Greater Britain" is 
good and Little Englandism high treason; nothing 
could be more dishonest, because from the point of 
view of the old Imperialism it is surely unfair to deny 
to the German people that very expansion and suprem- 
acy which the Englishman claims for his own race; 
and, finally, nothing could be more futile, because any 
German reader of average intelligence must see 
through such flagrant contradictions, and all our 
English arguments against German expansion must 
fall on deaf Teutonic ears. 

Let us once more pass in review some of those hack- 
neyed arguments, and let us try to look at the whole 
problem with the eye of a German patriot. 

The English diplomatist proposes a reduction of 
armaments — that is to say, he demands from Germany 
that she shall recognize the "two-power" standard; 
he demands from Germany that she shall accept 
for ever, not the equality, but the supremacy, of 



268 The Anglo-German Problem 

England. But we naturally ask, Why should Ger- 
many recognize the absolute necessity of English 
supremacy and submit to it as if it were a provi- 
dential law? In vain do we tell the Germans that 
such a maritime supremacy is necessary to the se- 
curity, nay, to the very subsistence, of the English 
people. Again, why should the Germans be specially 
concerned about the threatened security of the English 
people, especially if the Germans think that a powerful 
navy will do for them what a powerful navy has done 
for England — if, as Admiral Mahan contends, Eng- 
land owes her greatness, not to her freedom, not to her 
sterling moral and intellectual qualities, not to her 
coal and her iron, but mainly to her sea power? 

And even if Germany, for the sake of peace, were to 
consent to the principle of a reduction of armaments, 
how could such an agreement be carried out in prac- 
tice? For what is proposed is obviously not merely 
a reduction in the quantity of vessels, but in their 
quality and fighting power. Will it, therefore, be 
forbidden to the Germans under the agreement to 
improve that fighting power, to build more formidable 
battleships, to " out-Dreadnought " the Dreadnoughts? 
Is Germany to give due warning of every new inven- 
tion which increases the destructive capacity of her 
navy? 

And, what is even more important, how is it possible 
to keep the relation between the English and German 
navies a fixed quantity when the relations of all the 
other navies to each other and to England and to 
Germany are constantly changing?^ Is it not obvious 
that neither England nor Germany can only build 

^ I need only refer to the formidable new fleet which Russia is 
building, and which may threaten Germany in the Baltic. 



Conclusion 269 

with reference to each other, and ignore the navies of 
other countries? If England and Germany came to 
a naval agreement, England, no doubt, would be safe 
as against Germany. But would Germany be safe as 
against the navies of the United States, of Japan, of 
Russia, of France? On the one hand, how could such 
an agreement be effective unless it were to include 
all the other navies? and, on the other hand, how could 
Germany accept such an agreement with England 
unless it were converted into an actual alliance? 

Again, the English diplomatist objects to German 
expansion, say, in Belgium or Holland, or in Turkey 
and Asia Minor, because such expansion would disturb 
the balance of power and ensure German supremacy 
on the European continent. But the Germans legiti- 
mately reply — and we saw that General von Bern- 
hardi is very emphatic on that very point — that they 
refuse to accept the antiquated and unfair doctrine 
of the "balance of power." And from the German 
point of view, who would dare to say that the Germans 
are v/rong? England claims supremacy on sea: why 
should not Germany claim supremacy on land? 
English-speaking nations actually do control between 
them four out of the five continents of our sublunary 
world — they control America and Australia, Asia and 
Africa — and they are justly proud of this world expan- 
sion of one race. Why, then, should it be forbidden 
to the German-speaking nations to aim at controlling 
the fifth continent of Europe, and at establishing 
on that continent a federation of German-speaking 
people? In any case, one race must some day control 
the European continent, and as the day of the Latin 
is past, the choice must necessarily lie between the 
Slav and the Teuton. Already two hundred million 



270 The Anglo-German Problem 

Slavs are confronting seventy million Germans. 
Shall the Germans yield to the sheer weight of num- 
bers, and to a semi-civilized race which even England 
generally admits to be inferior to the Teuton? Shall 
Germany surrender her continental supremacy merely 
to indulge the jealousy of England? 

Again, the English diplomatist says: ** We object 
to any increase of the German navy because such 
an increase compels England to still further add to 
the crushing burden of taxation, and because a formid- 
able German fleet can only be intended against Eng- 
land." The German indignantly replies that Germany 
is not concerned with relieving the burden of the Eng- 
lish taxpayer; that a great nation like Germany has 
the right to build any number of ships she chooses ; that 
although a formidable German navy may eventually 
be an efficient weapon against England, it need not 
be used against England — that it might quite as 
likely be used against Russia, or China, or France, or 
Japan, and that whether it shall be used against 
England or not must entirely depend on the future 
policy of England. 

Again the English diplomatist retorts that there is 
no justification for Germany building a large navy; 
that Germany has no coastline to defend; that she 
has only two or three harbours in the open sea; that 
both history and geography have made Germany a 
continent. " That is true," replies the German; "but 
both history and geography can be changed, will be 
changed, must be changed. History is a perpetual 
flux. Nations rise and fall. Geographical bounda- 
ries are continually being shifted. Ask a cartographer 
like Dr. Bartholomew whether there is any finality 
in map-making. Has not England herself repainted 



Conclusion 271 

in red the greater part of the world in less than twenty 
years? And if the map of the world has been entirely 
repainted in the last few years in favour of England, 
surely it may be repainted a little in the colours of 
Germany. Your English publicists point out — and, 
alas! quiterightly — that we haveonly two or three good 
harbours to protect, and that one single ship sunk 
might block the traffic of the Kiel Canal ! But, surely, 
no statesman in his senses and with any forethought 
and imagination will believe for one moment that 
such a monstrous state of things can continue much 
longer ; that the German Empire can consent to have 
its fleet locked up for ever in the Baltic; that Germany 
with her enormous oversea trade can be for ever 
satisfied with Hamburg and Bremen and with her 
few miles of shallow and sandy coast. Germany does 
not want at present to incorporate Holland and, much 
less, Belgium with its three million French-speaking 
people — Germany has plenty of troublesome racial 
problems to deal with in the meantime; but whether 
Germany wants them or not, those countries, sooner 
or later, are bound to become part of the empire. 
Economically the Low Countries are already German, 
and their incorporation in the German Zollverein is 
only a question of years. That England should dread 
such a contingency is only natural, but it is in the 
logic of events, it is in the logic of geography and eco- 
nomics. If geography and economics have favoured 
England in the past, why should they not favour 
Germany in the future? 

** England cannot help the expansion of Germany; 
she cannot prevent the population of Germany increas- 
ing at the rate of one million a year, any more than 
the Germans themselves can prevent the population of 



2^2 The Anglo-German Problem 

Russia from increasing at the rate of two millions a 
year. If England is bent on opposing the commercial 
and territorial expansion of her neighbours — if she 
is bent on preventing the giant child from attaining 
its full stature — the conflict will be indeed inevitable. 
And for that conflict Germany must be prepared; 
and it is in view of that conflict — possible, if not 
certain — that Germany is arming. The Germans are 
building not for to-day but for to-morrow. The 
Kaiser's navy is not meant to defend the hundred 
miles of coastline which Germany at present possesses 
in the open sea, but the three hundred miles she is 
bound to possess in the near future. " 

And thus we might continue the argument ad 
infinitum, and no patriotic German would budge and 
give in by one inch, for there is no one English argu- 
ment which would not and could not be met by a 
counter German argument. Any English argument 
must necessarily fail to carry weight with the Germans 
because the German starts from different assumptions, 
and views the international situation from his own 
German position. And that position is perfectly 
solid, and those assumptions are perfectly valid. 
What is even more serious and ominous, so far 
as the prospects of peace are concerned, the Ger- 
man, who knows that he is right from his own 
point of view, knows that he is also right from 
the English point of view; he knows thai the prem- 
ises on which he is reasoning are still accepted by a 
large section of the English people. Millions of English 
people are actuated in their policy by those very 
Imperialistic principles on which the Germans take 
their stand. After all, German statesmen are only 
applying the political lessons which England has 



Conclusion 273 

taught them, which Mr. Rudyard Kipling has sung, 
and Mr. Chamberlain has proclaimed in speeches 
innumerable. Both the English Imperialist and the 
German Imperialist believe that the greatness of a 
country does not depend mainly on the virtues of the 
people, or on the resources of the home country, but 
largely on the capacity of the home country to acquire 
and to retain large tracts of territory all over the world. 
Both the EngHsh Imperialist and the German Impe- 
rialist have learnt the doctrine of Admiral Mahan, that 
the greatness and prosperity of a country depends 
mainly on sea power. Both believe that efficiency 
and success in war is one of the main conditions of 
national prosperity. 

Now, as long as the two nations do not rise to a 
saner political ideal, as long as both English and Ger- 
man people are agreed in accepting the current 
political philosophy, as long as both nations shall 
consider military power not merely as a necessary and 
temporary evil to submit to, but as a permanent 
and noble ideal to strive after, the German argument 
remains unanswerable. War is indeed predestined, 
and no diplomatists sitting round a great table in the 
Wilhelmstrasse or the Ballplatz or the Quai d'Orsay 
will be able to ward off the inevitable. It is only, 
therefore, in so far as both nations will move away 
from the old political philosophy that an understand- 
ing between Germany and England will become 
possible. As we stated in the opening chapter of this 
book, the majority of the British people are, no doubt, 
fast moving away from the old position. The ideal of 
a free federation of self-governing communities has 
taken the place of the old Imperial ideal, and the 
British Government has consistently applied it in 

x8 



274 The Anglo-German Problem 

practice. Unfortunately the majority of the German 
people still stand in the position where the English 
people stood before Cobden and Bright and Gladstone. 
The German people still live under the spell of Prussia. 
The Imperial Eagle, the bird of prey, still remains the 
dread symbol of German Imperialism. The majority 
of the German people still believe in the virtues of pro- 
tection, of nationalism, of militarism and despotism. 
And being thus steeped as they are in political mate- 
rialism, in Realpolitik — still believing, as they do, that 
national prosperity is due, not to economic or intel- 
lectual or moral or political superiority, but to military 
superiority; believing, as they do, that a victory on 
the battlefield confers upon the victors by some 
mysterious process a greater capacity to produce and 
to sell more cheaply in the markets of the world; 
believing, as they do, that war is not a waste of 
economic power, but the best means of acquiring 
wealth; in short, believing, as they do, that to-day 
they are rich and prosperous mainly because in 1870 
they beat the French people, why should they not 
believe and trust that in 191 5 they would become 
even stronger and richer if they succeeded in beating 
the EngHsh? 

No diplomatic negotiations can alter the fact that 
the whole fabric of German politics is based on militar- 
ism and Imperialism. We must repeat for the last 
time the Leitmotiv of this book: If, as the result of 
some internal difficulty or external contingency, those 
military and Imperialist motives be allowed to gather 
strength, then indeed the political pessimist is right — 
war is inevitable. What Mr. Wells says of the social 
unrest — that it is, above all, a question of psychology 
— is even more true of the international unrest. It 



Conclusion 275 

is not a question of economic values; it is a question 
of moral values. It is not a question of diplomatic 
moves and countermoves ; it is a question of mental 
states, a question of ideas and ideals. 

Once again, then, it is the ideas and the ideals that 
must be fundamentally changed : '' Instauratio facienda 
ab imis fundamentis.'^ And those ideals once changed, 
all motives for a war between England and Germany- 
would vanish as by magic. But alas ! ideas and ideals 
do not change by magic or prestige — they can only 
change by the slow operation of intellectual conver- 
sion. Arguments alone can do it. No banquets, even 
of journalists, no visits, even by Viscount Haldane, will 
achieve it. Only the systematic education of public 
opinion will perform the miracle. 

Towards that political education and conversion 
the schools will do — must do — a great deal in the 
future. They are doing very little in the present. At 
present the intellectual training of the schoolboy is 
hopelessly antiquated, and is almost entirely based on 
the study of the military civilizations of the past. The 
mind of the schoolboy imbibes from his earliest years 
the poison of militarism and of the old Imperialism. 
He only learns about the glamour and the romance 
of the wars of olden days; he learns nothing about the 
horrors and realities of the war of to-day. 

And towards that political education the universities 
will do — must do — a great deal in the future. They 
are doing at present little more than the schools. At 
present in England the universities are still lamentably 
reactionary, and in Germany the universities are still 
largely dependent on a military government. 

Towards that political conversion the churches 
will do — must do — a great deal in the future. At 



276 The Anglo-German Problem 

present they are doing least of all. For in Germany 
the Protestant churches have lost the confidence of 
the people; and it almost seems as if the Catholic 
Church would view with favour a war with heretical 
England and atheistic France — a war which would 
create a Catholic Greater Germany and would restore 
the Holy Roman Empire. 

And, finally, if from the consideration of the intel- 
lectual and spiritual forces we pass on to an estimation 
of the forces of finance and commerce, we find that 
even those forces are still divided between peace and 
war. It may be true, as Mr. Norman Angell attempts 
to prove, that bankers and financiers are increasingly 
made to feel the solidarity of nations; but there are 
other forces and vested interests in the economic world 
which are only too directly interested in the further- 
ance of war. 

The outlook, then, can hardly be said to be hopeful; 
but this is only an additional incentive to be more 
strenuous in our peaceful endeavours, and to waste 
none of our efforts in cant and delusion. Pious inten- 
tions and platonic aspirations will not suffice. " Porro 
unum est necessariumf' The one thing urgently 
needed to-day is to bring the whole influence of educa- 
tion to bear on the conversion of the people. And this 
conversion cannot come from an impulse of the heart ; 
it must be reached mainly as a conclusion of the brain. 
One book, like the masterpiece of Mr. Norman 
Angell, if spread in hundreds of thousands of copies, 
would do more for the cause of peace than all the 
resolutions of a dozen peace conferences. Peace, 
above all, will have to be achieved by hard thinking. 
It must be thought out and fought out, first in the 
silent meditation of the study, to be heralded after by 



Conclusion 277 

the loud sounding voices of the Press, to be instilled 
into the minds of the growing generation. 

Whilst this intellectual conversion of public opinion 
is preparing, and whilst we are spreading the doctrine 
rather than the gospel of peace, let us, at the same time, 
be watchful of those who would threaten us with war, 
and whose victory would prevent for generations to 
come the realization of our ideal. Some misguided 
pacifists are never tired of telling us that in all con- 
sistency it ought to be our first and immediate duty 
strenuously to oppose the mad race in armaments. I 
fail to see the logic of their conclusion. The doctrine 
of peace is not the Tolstoyan gospel of non-resistance ; 
it is, indeed, its very negation. It is no part of the 
doctrine of the pacifist that he shall place himself 
at the mercy of the militarist, and that in his very 
endeavour to secure peace he shall disarm himself 
whilst the mihtarist is preparing to attack him. The 
Utopian says: "Disarmament first, conversion after- 
wards." Common-sense and sound reason reply: 
"Such a pohcy would be suicidal. Faith must pre- 
cede works. Let the world be first converted, 
and disarmament must needs follow." The late Mr. 
Stead, who was ever an enthusiast in the cause of 
peace, was all the more determined that this country 
should not relax in her determination to maintain her 
naval supremacy. We can only hope that England, 
which to-day more than any other country — more, 
even, than republican France — represents the ideals 
of a pacific and industrial democracy, may never be 
called upon to assert her supremacy in armed con- 
flict, and to safeguard those ideals against a wanton 
attack on the part of the most formidable and most 
systematic military power the world has ever seen. 



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279 



28o The Anglo-German Problem 



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282 The Anglo-German Problem 

Jaures VArmee nouvelle. 

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Ill 



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(( <( 


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284 The Anglo-German Problem 



Battine, Captain 

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Blennerhasset 



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Butler 

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Coubertin 
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Eulenspiegel 



Excubitor . 



286 The Anglo-German Problem 

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<< <( 



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March, 191 1). 

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1911). 
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December, 191 1). 

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(N., January, 1907). 

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Naval Situation" (N., May, 
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288 The Anglo-German Problem 

spender, H "Great Britain and Germany" 

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(N., June, 1908). 
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1908). 
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December, 1908). 
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1909). 
" "The Naval Situation" (N., Feb- 
ruary, 19 10). 
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Constantinople" (F., May, 

1907). 
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(F., Jan., 1906). 
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(F., August, 1906). 
" "German Plan of Campaign" (F,, 

September, 191 1). 



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and the Neutral States. 8. Austria and the 
German Emperor. 9. Russia from the German 
Point of View. 10. On Liberty. 

Treitschke was a close friend of Bismarck, and 
his list of pupils include the political and military 
leaders of the present generation, such as the 
Emperor William, Bernhardi, and others. 

Lord Acton says of Treitschke: "He is the 
one writer of history who is more brilliant and 
more powerful than Droysen; and he writes 
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen, 
but he concerns himself with the problems of 
the present day, problems that are still demand- 
ing solution." 



New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London 



The Real 
"Truth About Germany" 

From the English Point of View 
By Douglas Sladen 

Author of " Egypt and the English," etc. 
With an Appendix 

Great Britain and the War 

By A. Maurice Low, M.A. 

Author of " The American People," etc. 

300 pages. 12". Cloth $100 

Mr. Sladen has taken as his text a pamphlet which, while not 
formally published, has been widely circulated in the United States, 
entitled The Truth About Germany. This pamphlet was prepared 
in Germany under the supervision of a Committee of Repre- 
sentative Germans, and may fairly be described as the "official 
justification of the War." Care has been taken to prevent copies 
from finding their way into England, which has caused Mr. Sladen 
to describe the pamphlet as The Secret White Paper, He has taken 
up one by one the statements of the German writers, and has 
shown how little foundation most of these statements have and 
how misleading are others which contain some element of truth. 
In answering the German statements, Mr. Sladen has naturally 
taken the opportunity to state clearly the case of England. England 
claims that it was impossible to avoid going into this struggle if 
it was to keep faith with and fulfill its obligations to Belgium 
and Luxemburg. Apart from this duty, it is the conviction of 
England, that it is fighting not only in fulfillment of obligations 
and to prevent France from being crushed for a second time, but 
for self-preservation. The German threat has been made openly 
" first Paris, then London." 

In order that the case for England may be complete, the pub- 
lishers have added an essay by the well-known historian, A. Maurice 
Low. As the title. Great Britain and the War, indicates, England's 
attitude toward the great conflict is clearly portrayed, and her 
reasons for joining therein are ably presented. 

New York G. P. Putnam'S Sons London 



